Dr. Amuthan Ramabathiran is broadly interested in the following topics: understanding, modeling and simulating the mechanics and thermodynamics of crystalline and amorphous solids at both the atomic and continuum scales, wave propagation in solids, topology optimization, scientific computing, and developing interpretable machine learning algorithms for computational mechanics.

He obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Madras (India), and his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering (specializing in structures) from Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. He has subsequently held post-doctoral research positions at Ecole Centrale de Nantes (France) and at Caltech. Prior to joining Cal Poly, he was a faculty member in the Aerospace Engineering department at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay from 2018 to 2023, and an adjunct faculty in the Mechanical Engineering department at California State University Northridge for the Spring 2024 semester.

He is passionate about teaching and is an avid proponent of inculcating the scientific spirit. He enjoys having good intellectual conversations about any and all aspects of math, science, engineering, or philosophy (of science). Outside academics, he likes hanging out with animals, especially dogs and cats, and dabbles with playing south Indian classical music on the fretless guitar.

More information about his teaching and research can be found on his academic webpage: https://amuthan.github.io/webpage/