Rate My Professor Katepalli Sreenivasan

Katepalli R. Sreenivasan is Dean Emeritus of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering and a University Professor at New York University, holding the Eugene Kleiner Professor for Innovation in Mechanical Engineering, as well as appointments as Professor of Physics in the Faculty of Arts and Science and Professor of Mathematics at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. His academic background includes a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University in 1968, where he ranked first and received the Sir M. Visvesvaraya Memorial Prize and other honors; an M.E. in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science in 1970; and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the same institution in 1975, earning the P.S. Narayana Medal for the best Ph.D. thesis in Mechanical Sciences. He later received an M.A. (Privatim) from Yale University in 1985 and honorary D.Sc. degrees from Lucknow University (2006), University of Hyderabad (2007), and Romanian Academy (2008).

Sreenivasan's distinguished career spans several institutions. At Yale University from 1979 to 2002, he served as Harold W. Cheel Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department (1987-1992), and held joint appointments in physics, applied physics, and mathematics. He directed the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, from 2003 to 2009 and was Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland. At NYU, he was Executive Vice Provost for Engineering and Applied Sciences, President and Dean of the Tandon School of Engineering (2013-2018). His primary research expertise is fluid mechanics and turbulence, extending to complex fluids, nonlinear dynamics, nonequilibrium phenomena, and cryogenic helium. Notable publications include 'The phenomenology of small-scale turbulence' (1997, 1537 citations), 'Simple multifractal cascade model for fully developed turbulence' (1987, 1317 citations), 'The multifractal nature of turbulent energy dissipation' (1991, 1121 citations), and 'Small-scale universality in fluid turbulence' (2014). Major awards encompass the Otto Laporte Memorial Award (American Physical Society, 1995), Guggenheim Fellowship (1989), AAAS Award for International Scientific Cooperation (2009), Leo P. Kadanoff Prize (2022), ASME Medal (2022), and election to the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His contributions have profoundly shaped the field of turbulence research.