Kripa Varanasi

Kripa Varanasi is Doherty Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He received his B.Tech from IIT, Madras and his MS (ME and EECS) and Ph.D from MIT. Prior to joining MIT, Dr. Varanasi was a lead research scientist and project leader in the Energy & Propulsion and Nanotechnology programs at the GE Global Research Center, Niskayuna, NY, and was the PI for the DARPA Advanced Electronics Cooling program. The primary focus of his research is in the development of nano-engineered surface, interface, and coating technologies that can dramatically enhance performance in energy, water, agriculture, transportation, buildings, and electronics cooling systems. Dr. Varanasi has filed more than 25 patents in this area. He was awarded the First Prize at the 2008 ASME Nanotechnology Symposium and won several awards at GE Research Labs including Technology Project of the Year, Best Patent Award, Inventor Award, and Leadership Award. Most recently he received the MIT-Deshpande Award, 2010 IEEE-ASME ITherm best paper award, NSF CAREER Award and DARPA Young Faculty Award.