Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Kripa K. Varanasi is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He received his B.Tech from IIT Madras, India and his SM (ME and EECS) and Ph.D 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 and biological phenomena at interfaces and developing novel materials, devices, and products that can dramatically enhance performance in energy, water, agriculture, transportation, medical, and consumer devices. He is passionate about entrepreneurship and has co-founded companies such as LiquiGlide, DropWise, and Infinite Cooling for translating the technologies from his lab to market. His LiquiGlide start-up won the Audience Choice award at MIT 100K and first prize at MassChallenge. Time and Forbes Magazines have named LiquiGlide to their “Best Inventions of the Year”.

Prof. Varanasi has received various awards for his work including NSF Career Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, ASME Bergles-Rohsenow Heat Transfer Award, Boston Business Journal’s 40 under 40, ASME Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award for outstanding achievements in mechanical engineering, APS Milton Van Dyke award, and MIT Graduate Student Council’s Frank E.
Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising. His Infinite Cooling start-up has won several awards including first prize at MassChallenge, MIT 100K, DOE National Cleantech prize among others.