About Me

Sankara Arunachalam (ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3685-3913) is a post-doc fellow in SuPER lab at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). He received his Bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Anna University, India (2005-09), followed by a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore (2009-11). He started his career as a Research Engineer at BEML Ltd, India (2011-15), and relocated to KAUST to work as a Research Specialist (2015-20) and later as a graduate student in Prof. Himanshu Mishra's group. His research focuses on developing sustainable gas-entrapping microtextured surfaces and understanding their interactions with droplets and bulk liquids. He has successfully demonstrated proof-of-concept applications of this bio-inspired approach for coating-free frictional drag reduction, mitigating cavitation erosion, and separation technologies. He has co-authored over 11 peer-reviewed articles with over 400 citations and holds one patent.

Education:

2020 – 2023: Ph.D., Environmental Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.

2009-2011: M. E., Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India.

2005-2009: B. E., Aeronautical Engineering, Anna University, Chennai, India.

Experience:

2025-Present: Post-doc., SuPER lab, Physical Science and Engineering, KAUST

2023-2025: Post-doc., Droplet lab, Mechanical Engineering, KAUST

2015-2020: Research Specialist., Interfacial lab, Water Desalination and Reuse Center, KAUST

2011-2015: R&D Engineer., Aerospace Technology Division, BEML Ltd, Bangalore, India

Honors and Awards :

Dean’s award for outstanding academic performance for my Ph.D. program at KAUST (2022)
Research article appeared as journal cover in Advanced Materials Interfaces
Speaker at the APS Division of fluid dynamics conference in Seattle (2019) and Phoenix (2021)
Project proposal won AU$37,600 grant from Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO)
Won several first prizes in national-level technical competitions held in India. (2007-2009)
Green belt in Martial-Arts from “Shaolin Chu Kung fu”, Bangalore, India.
Secured all India 55th rank in the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) examination and awarded a scholarship of INR. 200k for Master’s program in Aerospace Engineering
Research work got featured in Engineers Australia, EurekAlert!, Phys.org, KAUST Discovery, Scidev.net, Nature Chemistry Community Blogposts