Associate Professor
Chemical & Materials Engineering
San Jose State University
One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192
Office: ENG 385B, Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering
Dr. Gautam Kumar is an Associate Professor of Chemical and Materials Engineering at San José State University, where he leads interdisciplinary research at the intersection of control theory, computational neuroscience, and brain-machine interfaces. His work advances predictive, closed-loop neurostimulation strategies to regulate neural and physiological systems, with applications to epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and cardiovascular health.
He earned his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (2005), and his M.S. (2008) and Ph.D. (2013) in Chemical Engineering from Lehigh University. Following a postdoctoral fellowship in Electrical and Systems Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, he began his academic career as a tenure-track faculty member at the University of Idaho in 2016. He joined San José State University in 2021 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2025.
Dedicated to mentoring and outreach, Dr. Kumar has supervised numerous undergraduate and graduate students, launched neural engineering outreach programs at high schools, and championed diversity and student success initiatives. He currently serves as a review editor for Frontiers in Control Engineering and Frontiers for Young Minds, and as a guest associate editor for special issues in Frontiers in Control Engineering.
Curriculum Vitae: Kumar CV
Aanuoluwapo Olumuyiwa, M.S. student, Chemical Engineering
Jeffrey Gu, M.S. student, Software Engineering
Daniel Lee, M.S. student, Software Engineering
Joe Schmalz, Ph.D. (2021), Currently working as a computational biologist at Adaptive Biotechnologies
Andrew Branen, M.S. (2021), Currently working as an applied machine learning engineer at Bayer
Benjamin Plaster, M.S. (2021), Currently working as a machine learning and AI engineer at Neogen Corporation
Vishwanath Ketkar, Graduate Student, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Idaho
Niko Hansen, B.S. (2021), Currently a Ph.D. student in Chemical Engineering at UC Davis
Srusthi Thakur, M.S. student, Electrical Engineering at SJSU
Jacquelin Martinez-Alvarez, UG, Chemical Engineering (Helped with High School Outreach Activity)
Nathan Myres, UG, Chemical Engineering
Rachel V. Quinarez, UG student (Junior), Aerospace Engineering
John Clear, UG student (Senior), Software Engineering
Richard Ky, UG student (Senior), Computer Engineering
Nhu Lai, UG student (Senior), Chemical Engineering
Ria Rajadnya, UG student (Junior), Chemical Engineering, UC Davis
Harshita Keerthikanth, UG student (Sophomore), Computer Science
Vaishnavi Panchal, UG student (Sophomore), Computer Science
Nicole Parziale, UG student (Sophomore), Computer Science
Alex Garcia, UG student (Sophomore), Software Engineering
Tania Devatgar, M.S. student, Biomedical Engineering
Aasim Sadat Mohammed, M.S. student, Chemical Engineering
Thi Tuyet Bach Giang, Research Associate, Statistics
Duc Quang Tran, M.S. student, Software Engineering