Eminent Scholar in Metallurgy To Join Clark School as Distinguished Chair

Materials scientist, innovator, and strategic partnership leader Suresh Babu will join the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) in 2025 as a Clark Distinguished Chair, bringing decades of experience and receiving over $78 million in research and education awards in the past 8 years alone.

Babu joins the University of Maryland (UMD) from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he has served as Governor’s Chair for Advanced Manufacturing, as well as a professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering, and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

In this role, Babu studies the transformation of materials into parts via traditional and additive manufacturing (also known as 3D printing), and leads partnerships with public and private sectors to address engineering solutions to local and national challenges, with a vision to increase interdisciplinary collaborations that enhance research and education enterprises.

“The A. James Clark School of Engineering is recognized for cutting-edge research in aerospace, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and materials science. My goal is to democratize access to advanced materials and manufacturing technologies across Maryland and the nation to enhance our competitiveness,” said Babu.

He explains that interdisciplinary collaboration will be essential to address energy efficiency solutions, develop agile supply chains for defense and civilian sectors, and expand scalable STEM educational opportunities with contextual learning for all.

As a scholar, Babu’s expertise has extended to over 378 peer-reviewed journals and earned over 24,458 citations, which led to numerous awards, including the American Welding Society’s (AWS) William Irrgang Memorial Award, the R&D 100 Award for additive manufacturing, and UT’s Outstanding Faculty Initiative and Leadership Award. He is also a fellow of AWS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ASM International, and SME.

In 2020, Babu was appointed a member of the National Science Board for a six-year period, which “establishes the policies of the National Science Foundation and serves as advisor to Congress and the President. The Board also approves major NSF awards, provides congressional testimony, and issues statements relevant to the nation’s S&E enterprise,” according to their website.

Babu’s work spans over 30 years of research in advanced manufacturing, additive manufacturing, physical metallurgy, as well as computational materials modeling, which has resulted in seven U.S. patents. His paper on X-ray diffraction of primary weld solidification, published in 2002, introduced the first way to observe why liquid turns into either closed or open crystal structure under complex thermal gradients and liquid-solid interface velocity.

Later on, the professor became the first to demonstrate site-specific microstructure control within an engineered component, which he published in Materials Science and Technology in 2015. His work continued to investigate how crystallographic texture control can be achieved within any arbitrary region using machine learning algorithms, which he published in Additive Manufacturing in 2021.

“We are beyond excited that professor Babu will be joining our department. He brings unparalleled experience and expertise in wide ranging materials science fields as well as science policies. We are all looking forward to working with him closely to elevate the department to the next level,” says Ichiro Takeuchi, interim chair of MSE.

As a faculty of UT, professor Babu previously directed the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education from 2021–2022, and served as the inaugural senior advisor for research and STEM to the Provost and Vice Chancellor of Research from 2022–2024. He has advised more than 45 doctoral and master’s students.

Babu will hold the Clark Distinguished Chair in Materials Science and Engineering, a position established by the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation through their 2017 Building Together: An Investment for Maryland. He joins other Clark Distinguished Chair holders Deb Niemeier, Jay Lee, Saikat Guha, and Inderjit Chopra in this distinction.

A native of India, Babu holds a bachelor’s degree in metallurgical engineering from the PSG College of Technology, a master’s degree in industrial welding metallurgy from the Indian Institute of Technology, and a doctorate degree in materials science and metallurgy from the University of Cambridge.

Prior to joining academia, Babu held a senior technology position at the Edison Welding Institute in Columbus, Ohio, working on engineering materials. He currently works on leading a multidisciplinary university research initiatives program on fundamentals of additive manufacturing for the Office of Naval Research.

Published November 18, 2024