Kota, Sridhar

Professor of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering
Herrick Professor of Engineering
Executive Director, MForesight

Biography

Sridhar Kota is the Herrick Professor of Engineering, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan, and the founding Executive Director of MForesight: Alliance for Manufacturing Foresight -a national consortium on emerging technologies and advanced manufacturing. Between 2009-2012 Prof. Kota served as the Assistant Director for Advanced Manufacturing at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He played an instrumental role in initiating and launching National Manufacturing Innovation Institutes and National Robotics Initiative. Kota is the Director for the Compliant Systems Design Laboratory (Est.1994) that develops methods for designing one-piece machines by exploiting the natural elasticity of materials with applications to shape-adaptive structures including wind turbine blades. Kota is the recipient of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Machine Design Award, Leonardo da Vinci Award, the Outstanding Educator Award, University of Michigan Regents Award for Distinguished Public Service and the Distinguished University Innovator Award. He is the founder and CTO of FlexSys Inc., that developed and flight tested the world’s first modern aircraft with shape-changing wings to improve fuel efficiency and noise reduction.