The Outstanding Dissertation Award is听awarded annually to one student whose dissertation is of extremely high quality and contributes significantly to our understanding of the subject matter.
This year鈥檚 winner is Shankar听听Lalitha Sridhar, who earned his PhD in mechanical engineering in August.
Shankar earned his bachelor鈥檚 and master鈥檚 degrees in civil engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, and then a master鈥檚 degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University before coming to CU Boulder.
While earning his PhD, he worked as a research assistant in Professor Franck Vernerey鈥檚 Soft Matter Mechanics Lab and as a teaching assistant. Shankar also served as president of the Prospectives of Soft Matter student club to bring together researchers, students and faculty to share expertise and collaborate around this topic.
Described as a meticulous and highly motivated researcher, Shankar earned recognition for his doctoral dissertation titled, 鈥淢echanics of transient networks: an interplay of dynamics and microstructure.鈥�
He now works as a postdoctoral research associate in the lab of Dr. Loren Hough in the Department of Physics at CU Boulder.