1981 - Ph.D - Chemistry Director, Texas Materials Institute @ The University of Texas at Austin
Dr. Manthiram received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from IIT Madras in 1981. After brief stints as a Postdoctoral Fellow at IISc Bangalore, as a lecturer in Madurai Kamaraj University, and as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford, England, he went on to join the University of Texas at Austin as a Postdoctoral Researcher in 1986, becoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1991. As of 2000, he was appointed as Professor in the same department, earning him a distinguished leadership position in one of the top-ten engineering schools in the United States.
A globally recognized leader in energy materials, Dr. Manthiram directs one of the largest and most productive research groups at the University of Texas at Austin with about 30 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, focused on clean energy technologies, for which he has developed new, low-cost, efficient materials. He has contributed 600 publications (including 520 journal articles, 8 awarded patents, and 16 pending patent applications) and 280 presentations (including 180 invited talks) to the top-most journals and intellectual associations in the field. Further, he is the Regional (USA) Editor of the journal Solid State Ionics, and is serving as an Editorial Board Member of five other international journals, including Chemistry of Materials. He has organized many symposia and chaired numerous sessions at major professional society meetings, in addition to having served as a Chair of the Battery Division for the Electrochemical Society. He co-founded a startup, ActaCell, in 2007.
As a testament to his prowess and acumen in the field, Dr. Arumugam Manthiram is currently the Director of the Texas Materials Institute, the Director of the Materials Science and Engineering Graduate Program, and the Cockrell Family Regents Chair in Engineering. As the Director of the Texas Materials Institute, he provides the vision for and manages the materials education and state-of-the-art materials characterization facilities at the University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Manthiram has received numerous awards, among which are: the Engineering Foundation Faculty Excellence Award (1994), the Mechanical Engineering Department Faculty Leadership Award (1996), the Charlotte Maer Patton Centennial Fellowship in Engineering (1998), the Ashley H. Priddy Centennial Professorship in Engineering (2002), the BF Goodrich Endowed Professorship in Materials Engineering (2006), the Joe C. Walter Chair in Engineering (2009), the Mechanical Engineering Department Outstanding Teaching Award (2011), and the University of Texas Outstanding Graduate Teaching award (2012). Most recently, in 2014, he received the Battery Division Research Award of the Electrochemical Society. Dr. Manthiram is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society, the Electrochemical Society, and the American Association for Advancement of Science.
In recognition of Dr. Arumugam Manthiram’s excellence in materials and energy research and education, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to confer upon him this award.
