Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, MIT
Kripa K. Varanasi is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He received his BTech from IIT Madras, India, and his MS (ME and EECS) and PhD from MIT. Prior to joining MIT as a faculty member, Prof. Varanasi was a lead researcher and project leader at the GE Global Research Center. The focus of his work is in understanding the physico-chemical phenomena at interfaces and developing novel materials and coatings that can dramatically enhance performance in energy, water, agriculture, transportation, medical, and consumer devices. Prof. Varanasi has received various awards for his work including NSF Career and DARPA Young Faculty Award. He is active in entrepreneurship and has co-founded several companies such as LiquiGlide, DropWise, and UniPolar for translating the technologies from his lab to market. Time and Forbes Magazines have named LiquiGlide as one of the Best Inventions of the Year. He was most recently awarded the Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer award by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Bergles-Rohsenow Heat Transfer Award by American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Boston Business Journal’s 40 under 40, Distinguished Achievements Award from TMS Energy Materials, and 2017 DOE Cleantech Startup Award for the Infinite Cooling Technology.