People

Director

Vinayak R. Krishnamurthy

Vinayak Krishnamurthy is an Associate Professor in the J. Mike Walker’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering and an affiliated faculty in the Department of Computer Science at Texas A&M University. He currently holds the J. Mike Walker '66 Career Development Professorship at Texas A&M. He earned his Ph.D. in 2015 from the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University and joined Texas A&M in Fall 2016.

Krishnamurthy currently directs the Mixed-Initiative Design Lab (MIDL) at Texas A&M University. His research is at the interface of geometric & topological computing, human-computer interaction, and artificial intelligence. He applies the knowledge gained in these areas to various domains such as metamaterial design, extended reality for design, computational fabrication, data-driven design, collaborative design, autonomous systems, surgical training, and engineering education.

His dissertation research led to the commercial deployment of zPots, a virtual pottery app using Leap Motion controller in collaboration with zeroUI, a California-based startup. He is the recipient of multiple awards including the NSF CAREER award, ASME CIE Young Engineer Award, 2024 ASME Rising Stars of Mechanical Engineering award, and three best paper awards at the ASME IDETC/CIE conferences. He is also the recipient of the Peggy L. and Charles L. Brittan Teaching Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching and the TAMU Association of Former Students College Level Teaching Award at Texas A&M.