Sourav Saha has joined the department as an assistant professor. He recently earned his Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Northwestern University and specializes in mechanistic computational intelligence, computational mechanics, computational nanomaterials and bioinformatics. 

Prior to joining Northwestern, Saha completed a master’s and bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). He is currently a member of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics(AIAA), U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics (USACM), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS). He served as a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at BUET. 

Dr. Saha has published 35 scientific articles in peer reviewed journals and has 4 patent applications. He is a listed reviewer of several prestigious journals in his field including Computational Mechanics and Journal of Computational Physics. Moreover, his dissertation research has helped form an Illinois-based start-up company HIDENN-AI, LLC. 

Dr. Saha has received several awards for his scientific contributions including Richter Memorial Fellowship, Cabell Fellowship, NSF Intern Award, NIST AM Bech 2022 winner award, and travel fellowships.



What drew you to Virginia Tech? Share with us what excites you about the department and our students?

Virginia Tech has a long-standing reputation for being one of best places for engineering education with many esteemed researchers working on computational research. This made VT a very attractive destination to start my academic career.

Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering is one of the top programs of its kind in the nation. The strength of our department is the diverse nature of the core faculty team. The department welcomes and creates a favorable environment for your own individual research pathway. The students are eager to learn and grow. This is exciting for any early career scientist.

What does your research entail? What do you hope will come of it?

My current research falls at the intersection of computational mechanics, scientific machine learning, materials, and manufacturing science. I am developing novel computational methods to ease the design of complex materials system and manufacturing processes. Moreover, I am designing a new generation of algorithms to be applied in Neural Network which will generate what I am calling “Engineering Software 2.0”.  

What originally got you interested in your work? Tell us about the ‘spark’ that pulled you to your area of research.

I had begun as a heat transfer researcher, and then moved to nanomaterials during my MS. When I started my Ph.D., I was looking for new opportunities to merge my experience from different backgrounds into something new. During my PhD I saw 3D printing to be a great area where these different ideas merge and I also saw a real opportunity to make impact in this field with scientific machine learning.

Please share with us what you’d like engineering students to know about your lab and research group?

If a student is interested in applications and development of scientific machine learning to engineering application such as multiscale materials and manufacturing, my lab is a perfect place. My lab provides state-of-art training on computational methods and develops innovative ideas on engineering.