Nikhilesh Chawla

Biography

Nikhilesh Chawla is Professor of Materials Engineering in the School of Materials at Arizona State University. He is Director of the ASU interdisciplinary Mechanical Behavior of Materials Facility. Professor Chawla received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1997. Prior to joining Arizona State University in 2000 he was a postdoctoral fellow jointly at Ford Motor Company and the University of Michigan, and a senior development engineer at Hoeganaes Corporation. His research interests encompass the mechanical behavior and modeling of advanced materials at bulk and small length scales, including Pb-free solders, metal matrix composites, biocompatible coatings, metal-ceramic nanolaminates, and powder metallurgy alloys. He has authored or co-authored over 100 publications in these areas. He is the author of the textbook Metal Matrix Composites (co-authored with K.K. Chawla), published by Springer in 2006. Chawla is the recipient of the 2004 Bradley Stoughton Award for Young Teachers, given by ASM International, and the 2006 Young Leaders Tutorial Lecture, given by The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society (TMS). He has also won the National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award. Currently he serves as Chair of the Composite Materials Committee and member of the Electronic Packaging and Interconnect Materials and Mechanical Behavior Committees of TMS. Chawla serves on the Editorial Boards of Materials Characterization and Metallurgical and Materials Transactions.

Research Interest

Mechanical behavior of materials failure analysis nanoindentation