Biographical Information

Dr. Ashok Kumar is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing Research Center (formerly, Center for Microelectronics Research) at the University of South Florida. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering with minor in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University (NCSU), M.Tech. (Master of Technology) and B.Tech. (Bachelor of Technology) from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, India.

• Dr. Kumar successfully directed as a Cluster Leader of Advanced Materials program to win a 3.5 million dollars of research funding for the State of Alabama under NASA Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Program (EPSCoR) program at the University of South Alabama as a lead institution . His duties as Cluster Leader was to supervise the statewide Advanced Materials research program comprising of five major universities and six small colleges with two HBCU’s.

• Dr. Kumar received the prestigious NSF CAREER award in 2000, which is the highest honor given by the NSF to young university faculty in science and engineering.

• Based upon outstanding research performance at USF, Dr. Kumar received USF President Faculty Excellence of Research Award in 2003. He also received Outstanding Faculty Research Achievement Award from Office of the Research in 2004.

• As a faculty at the both universities (University of South Florida, Tampa; and University of South Alabama, Mobile), he brought in excess of 6 million dollar of research funding as PI and more than 3 million dollars as Co-PI. His research has been supported from federal agencies (NSF, NASA, and DOE) and private companies, such as, Sematech, Honeywell, General Motors, BryCoat, Lucent Technologies, PsiloQuest, Novellus, Cabot Microelectronics etc.

• Dr. Kumar has approximately 13 years of research and teaching experience and specializes in the areas of design, processing, and characterization of novel emerging high-technology materials of semiconductor, high-Tc superconductor, diamond, ferroelectric, and magnetic thin films coatings for the use in different commercial sectors. His current research focuses on the use of nanotechnology for biological applications. Dr. Kumar has established ‘Advanced Materials Research Laboratory’ (AMRL). The purpose of establishing AMRL at the USF is to develop a multi-disciplinary research laboratory for excellence in advanced thin films/coatings for microelectronic and MEMS applications, superhard coatings for tribological applications, and specific coatings for biomedical applications. The main focus of the research projects will be to improve the basic and applied understanding of thin film materials synthesis, characterization, and properties of interest for industrial applications.

• Dr. Kumar has supervised 1 Ph.D. and 35 MS graduate students as chairman of the committee. 7 Ph.D. students are currently pursuing dissertation under him as major professor and 1 will finish Ph.D. in Summer 2006. Many of his students won awards such as USF outstanding thesis award, Sigma Xi Best Graduate Researcher Award and AVS student poster award and employed in prestigious company like INTEL, Micron Technologies, Philips Semiconductors, Applied Materials, GE etc.

• Dr. Kumar is currently serving as Research for Undergraduates Students (REU) Co-ordinator for Mechanical Engineering Department to mentor and provide logistic help to REU students to pursue graduate program (http://www.eng.usf.edu/~akumar/reu/reu.html) He is also involved in Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program. As outreach activities, he has involved the faculty and students from high school in various research projects (http://www.eng.usf.edu/~akumar/ret/ret.html).

• Dr. Kumar is the Co-PI of the NSF funded GK-12 grant and he along with the graduate fellows have been involved in preparing modulus ‘Wonders of Materials’ for the implementation as the curriculum activities for elementary 3-5 grades in five elementary schools, three of which predominantly serve minorities that are underrepresented in science and engineering (http://stars.eng.usf.edu/).

• Dr. Kumar serves as the member of the advisory board for the Research Infrastructure in Minority Institutions (RIMI) at the Alabama State University, Montgomery. This RIMI grant supported from NIH focuses on building research capacity in predominantly minority-serving academic institutions with the ultimate aim to develop sustainable research programs. As the member of the RIMI advisory board, he provides recommendations to improve the RIMI activities at the ASU. (http://www.alasu.edu/Academic_Affairs/default.aspx?id=23).

• Dr. Kumar is the co-ordinator of ‘The Bridge to the Doctorate Program’ for the ME department under Florida-Georgia Louis Stokes Alliance for minority participation. He is actively involved in advising minority students to pursue Ph.D. degree in Materials Engineering.

• Dr. Kumar has initiated valuable collaboration with International Universities and Institutions (Nagaoka University of Technology (Japan), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), National University of Singapore, Institute of Microelectronics (Singapore), IIT Mumbai India, etc.) and this has led to establish student exchange program to work on topics related to microelectronics and nanotechnology.

• Dr. Kumar has taught 14 different lecture based courses at the graduate and undergraduate level and also supervised undergraduate design projects. He has developed many interdisciplinary types of courses such as Nanomanufacturing and MEMS at undergraduate and graduate level.

• Dr.Kumar is the co-author of the textbook: MATERIALS PROCESSES AND MANUFACTURING SCIENCE published by Elsevier and Academic Press in 2006 (ISBN#13-987-0-7506-7716-5 and ISBN#10-0-7506-7716-3). This textbook’s focus is materials processing in manufacturing and its scope is cross-disciplinary. It emphasizes quantitative understanding, and integrates the knowledge-base of materials and processing science with manufacturing technology. http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/704736/description#description)

• Dr. Kumar has published more than 140 reviewed articles and has presented approximately 110 papers in regional and national conferences. He has been invited as a speaker and a session organizer at many national and international meetings. He is member of Materials Research Society, American Physical Society, ASM International, The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, American Vacuum Society, and The Electrochemical Society. He has served as secretary of Thin Film Interfaces Committee and Advisor to Journal of Metals for TMS society. He has served as Vice President of Thin Film Interface Committee for TMS society. He has organized eight symposiums for TMS and MRS meetings and has edited six books as lead symposium organizer.