Dr. U. Chandrasekhar is the pro vice chancellor of Vel Tech Dr.RR & Dr.SR Technical University, Chennai. He was director of the Engineering Staff College of India (ESCI), an autonomous organ of The Institution of Engineers (India), and prior to that he was an additional director at the Gas Turbine Research Establishment, a Ministry of Defence R&D organization. For the past 26 years, he has been involved in design, analysis, prototyping, rapid manufacturing, and testing of aero gas turbine engines. He set up the first-ever rapid prototyping laboratory in the country. He has received a commendation medal from the scientific advisor to the defence minister in recognition of his research efforts. He received his B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from NIT, Suratkal; M.Tech. in Design Stream from IIT, Madras; and his Ph.D. from VTU. For his academic excellence at IIT Madras, he received an award from the former president of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. He trained RP and sensor technologies in Germany, the UK and Belgium. He is currently leading a critical technology development project on high-temperature thin film sensors in collaboration with NRC, Canada. He serves on the council of the Institution of Engineers and National Design and Research Forum. He was also chosen to represent India in the Young Leaders Convention of World Federation of Engineering Organisations at Geneva. He has been invited by several national and international professional bodies as the keynote speaker on advanced prototyping and sensor technologies. Dr. Lung-Jieh Yang received his M.S. degree from Tamkang University, Taiwan in 1991 and Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Applied Mechanics, National Taiwan University in 1997. He was a visiting associate of Electrical Engineering, Caltech, USA from 2000 to 2001. He is currently a professor at the Department of Mechanical & Electromechanical Engineering and the director of the Instrument & Experiment Center at Tamkang University. He is also a member of IEEE and AIAA. His current research interests include flapping micro-aerial-vehicles (MAVs) and gelatin MEMS technology. His research areas are polymer composites, nanomaterials, high-temperature foams, experimental mechanics, sensors for health monitoring and energy harvesting. Dr. S. Gowthaman is the director of R&D at Vel Tech Dr.RR & Dr.SR University and associate professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He received his B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Bharathidasan University (Shanmugha College of Engineering) and M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina A&T State University, USA. His research activities include polymer-based composite materials, experimental mechanics, nano-engineering and advanced materials providing solutions for structural and material needs in various applications. Before joining Vel Tech University in 2013, Dr. Gowthaman worked at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore and the Center for Aviation Safety (CAS) at NC A&T State University (USA). He has worked in research projects sponsored by various agencies like NASA (USA), US Army (USA), ONR (USA), Wright Materials Research (USA), DSTA (Singapore), DST-SERB (India), DRDO-ERIPR (India) and DST-TDT (India). He has collaborated and is collaborating with a number of national and international institutes and research labs. He has published more than 30 research papers in international journals and conference proceedings. He is a member of several committees and societies including AIAA Materials Technical Committee (USA), and serves as a reviewer for various journals, including Composites Part A, Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, AIAA Journal and IE Springer Journal, and is a member of the editorial boards for international conferences like I-DAD and ICAM-3D. Dr. Gowthaman has received several awards from NC A&T State University (USA) and Bharathidasan University for his academic and research achievements, including a NTU (Singapore) Post Doctorate Fellowship and DST-SERB (India) Early Career Research project award.
