Dr. K. Chandrashekhara, professor of
mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Missouri-Rolla and
director of UMR’s Composite Manufacturing Laboratory, has been named Curators’
Professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. The title will be conferred
during UMR commencement ceremonies Saturday, Dec. 15. 

The University of Missouri Board of Curators
approved Chandrashekhara’s designation as Curators’ Professor during its
October meeting. The professorship is awarded to outstanding scholars with
established reputations in their field of study. 

Chandrashekhara came to UMR in 1985 after
earning a Ph.D. in engineering science and mechanics at Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va. He was promoted to associate
professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UMR in 1991 and earned the
rank of professor in 1997. In addition to serving as the director of UMR’s
Composite Manufacturing Laboratory, Chandrashekhara is also a research
investigator at UMR’s Intelligent Systems Center and is involved with the
systems engineering program. 

Chandrashekhara specializes in composite
manufacturing, smart structures, biocomposites, nanocomposites and finite
element analysis. His research projects have been funded by the Army Research
Office, the Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the
Department of Commerce, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of
Transportation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the United
Soybean Board. Recently, Chandrashekhara and other UMR researchers received two
grants from the National Science Foundation to develop durable,
energy-efficient composite panels for affordable housing. 

A winner of several Faculty Excellence Awards
at UMR, Chandrashekhara has published his research in more than 75 scholarly
journals. He is the co-author of a leading textbook on composite materials and
is on the editorial board of the Journal of Biobased Materials and Bioenergy.
He is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and an associate
fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics. 

Chandrashekhara holds a master’s degree in
aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, a bachelor’s
degree in aerospace engineering from the Madras Institute of Technology and a
bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from the University of Mysore,
India.