Ajay Kottapalli appointed associate professor in Bio-inspired MEMS and Biomedical Devices

We are glad to announce that dr Ajay Kottapalli has been granted promotion by the Executive Board of our University to associate professor in Bio-inspired MEMS and Biomedical Devices. Kottapalli will establish and chair a new research unit within ENTEG.

Ajay Kottapalli's core research focus is on Biomimetic materials, bioinspired MEMS/NEMS sensors, wearable electronics and biomedical devices. Since 2018, Ajay is also a Research Affiliate with MIT Sea Grant at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to joining as an Assistant Professor, he worked as a Principal Research Scientist and Research Scientist at the Singapore-MIT the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), Singapore. In 2013, he received his Ph.D degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore through the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Graduate fellowship programme. Prior to his PhD, he obtained two masters degrees in Solid State Physics and Photonics from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and Satya Sai University respectively.

One of the key pursuits of his research is to optimally translate the biological sensory functions found in nature into biomimetic electronic sensors for healthcare applications. His research creatively amalgamates fundamental scientific biomimetic aspects of MEMS/NEMS, wearable electronic sensors and their innovative problem-centered real-life applications in biomedical and healthcare domains.

Ajay Kottapalli published about 90 peer-reviewed papers, edited 2 books and held 3 patents (one of which is granted) in MEMS sensor technology. In 2018, Ajay was awarded the top 10 innovators under 35 in Asia Pacific by the MIT Technology Review, which is a hallmark achievement of his research career. He was one of the outstanding reviewers of the year 2016 for the Biomimetics and Bioinspiration journal. In 2014, he was awarded the best technology pitch award at the SMART Bootcamp and at the Japan TechPlanter. In 2022, he was awarded the European research council (ERC) Starting Grant of 1.5 mil Euros. He is a co-founder of Sencilia , a Medtech start-up which spun out of the research conducted in his team. His research was featured in the news and received media attention in articles such as Asian Scientist , Tabla (Singapore newspaper) and The Straits Times (Singapore newspaper), De Ingenieur , RUG Science Linx , AAAS Eureka Alert , Ukrant , Automatie magazine . More information about his research could be found through these videos: Seal whisker inspired sensors , Biomedical MEMS , Biomimetic MEMS sensors .