Ishwar K. Puri

Ishwar K. Puri is Senior Vice President, Research and Innovation, and professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Southern California. He oversees the USC Office of Research that guides the university’s research programs.

Puri is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is the author of over 200 archival publications and books that have been cited over 7,500 times on Google Scholar with an h-index of 49. Puri ranks among the top 2% of scientists globally based on the citations of those published between 1965 and 2019. He has founded and mentored startups, most recently Celerite Labs, a company that produces a rapid printer for cells and tissues.

Before his USC appointment, Puri was dean of the engineering faculty and a professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He was one of eighteen members of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, an appointment made by the governor general of Canada. In addition, Puri served as chair of Engineering Deans Canada. He was previously the N. Waldo Harrison Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, where he served as department head from 2004 to 2013.

He began his teaching career at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, eventually rising to the rank of professor. Soon after, he served as associate dean for research and graduate studies and as executive associate dean of engineering. Before UIC, he was an assistant research engineer at the University of California, San Diego.

Puri holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Delhi’s College of Engineering and obtained his master’s degree in engineering science (applied mechanics) and PhD from the University of California, San Diego.

He serves on the editorial board of Scientific Reports, a Nature Group journal, and is an associate editor of Research, a Science partner journal.