Tribikram Kundu

Biography

 In 1979.Prof. Tribikram Kundu received his bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, winning the President of India Gold Medal (or PGM) for ranking first among all graduating engineers from all disciplines of IIT, Kharagpur.  His MS (1980) and PhD (1983) in solid mechanics were from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was awarded the outstanding graduate student of the year award in 1980/81 by the UCLA Engineering Alumni Association. He joined the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics (name changed to Civil and Architectural Engineering and Mechanics in 2018) of the University of Arizona as an Assistant Professor in 1983 and was promoted to full professor in 1994. 

Dr. Kundu has made significant and original contributions in both basic and applied research in nondestructive testing (NDT) and structural health monitoring (SHM) by ultrasonic and electromagnetic techniques.  His fundamental research interests are in the analysis of elastic and electromagnetic wave propagation in multi-layered solids, fracture mechanics, biomechanics and computational mechanics.  Application areas of his research findings include civil and structural materials, aerospace materials, geomaterials, electronic and biological materials.  He has published 9 books (3 text books and 6 research monographs), 18 book chapters and 363 technical papers, 186 of these papers have been published in refereed scientific journals. As of July 9, 2021, according to Google Scholar his publications have been cited 8250 times (http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zKRoHmwAAAAJ&hl=en) with an h-index of 48 and i10-index 174 (i.e. 174 of his papers have been cited 10 times or more). His Scopus h-index is 40. His Web of Science h-index and total citations are 34 and 3803, respectively as of December 11, 2020. He has edited 24 conference proceedings, supervised 40 PhD students [35 at the University of Arizona (for 28 as advisor and for 6 as co-advisor) and 6 more as co-advisor in foreign universities] and 28 MS students [27 at the University of Arizona and 1 in a foreign university]. Currently he is supervising 3 PhD students.  He is Fellow of five societies - ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers), ASA (Acoustical Society of America), ASNT (American Society of Nondestructive Testing) and SPIE (The International Society for Optics and Photonics) - and a life member of AvHAA (Alexander von Humboldt Association of America).  He has served as the Chairman of the SPIE yearly conference on Health Monitoring of Structural and Biological Systems (held in March of every year) for 18 consecutive years – from 2001 to 2018, and Symposium Chair of the SPIE Symposium on Smart Structures and NDE for 2 years 2018 and 2019, and as vice chair on 2016 and 2017.  He has also served as the Chairman of the ASME NDE Engineering Division from 2003 to 2005.

He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the ASME Journal of Nondestructive Evaluation, Diagnostics and Prognostics of Engineering Systems (http://nondestructive.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/journal.aspx?journalid=188, serving as EIC since April 2017). He was also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Civil Engineering and Science (served as EIC from 2012 to 2017). He is currently serving as an Associate Editor (AE) of Ultrasonics since 2014 and has served as an AE of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (2012-2017), ASME Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology (2006-2012) and Structural Health Monitoring: An International Journal (2008-2017). He had served on the editorial advisory board of the International Journal of Geomechanics (2001-2006) and Structural Longevity journal (2009-2017). He has extensive collaborations with international and US scientists.   He has spent 30 months in the Department of Biology, J. W. Goethe University and Frankfurt University of Applied Science, in Frankfurt, Germany, first as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and then as a Humboldt Research Prize winner.  He has also spent minimum one month to several years in each of the following institutes as an Invited Professor

• Department of Mechanics, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
• Acoustic Microscopy Center, Semienov Institute of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow
• Department of Civil Engineering, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), Switzerland
• Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Technology, Compiegne, France
• Laboratory of Mechanics and Physics, University of Bordeaux, France
• Electrical Engineering Department (SATIE Lab.), Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS), Cachan, France
• Aarhus University Medical School, Aarhus, Denmark
• Department of Applied Physics, University of Leipzig, Germany
• Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan
• Technical University of Valencia (UPV), Spain
• KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), Daejeon, South Korea
• AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland
• Centre for Mechanics of Machines; Polish Academy of Sciences, Gdansk, Poland
• Nondestructive Evaluation branch of the Wright-Patterson Material Laboratory, Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Dayton, Ohio.
• Nanyang Institute of Technology, Singapore
• University of Naples, Italy
• Technical University of Bari, Italy 

Dr. Kundu has received a number of recognitions; some of those are listed below.

• Humboldt Research Prize from Germany, Senior Scientist Award, 2003
• Humboldt Fellowship Award from Germany in 1996-97 and 1989-90
• ASME NDPD Division’s Founders Award 2017 – Presented at the IMECE (International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition) 2017, in Tampa, Florida, Nov. 4-6, 2017. This award is given by the NDPD (Nondestructive evaluation, Diagnosis and Prognosis Division) based on the nominee’s publication impact. The award citation states “In testimony of his significant and original contributions in both basic and applied research in nondestructive testing (NDT) and structural health monitoring (SHM) by ultrasonic and electromagnetic techniques that include fundamental research in the analysis of elastic and electromagnetic wave propagation in multilayered solids, and its applications in civil, structural, aerospace, geological, electronic and biological materials.”
• NDE Lifetime Achievement Award 2012 from SPIE (The International Society for Optics and Photonics)

(the award certificate was given in March 2012 at the SPIE’s annual symposium on Smart Structures/NDE).

• 2015 Research Award for Sustained Excellence from ASNT (The American Society for Nondestructive Testing) in recognition of his outstanding and sustained contributions in NDE/NDT (the award was given on March 18, 2015 at the ASNT’s research symposium in Anaheim, California)
• 2015 SHM Lifetime Achievement Award chosen by the researchers and educators in the field of Structural Health Monitoring. This award was given at the International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring at Stanford University in September 2015. Details are in http://structure.stanford.edu/workshop/awards.html
• Structural Health Monitoring Person of the Year 2008 (chosen by the SHM community & SHM Journal)
• Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Kharagpur in 2020 for Scholastic achievements, Leadership, Contribution to society, and Peer recognition. 
• Engineering Faculty Fellow of the University of Arizona 2012 – for his research contribution the Engineering College of the University of Arizona recognized him as the Engineering Faculty Fellow that comes with a salary raise, similar to Chair Professorships in some other universities. Selected few faculty members are given this distinguished honor. The College of Engineering of the University of Arizona does not have any Chair Professorship but instead has Engineering Research Faculty Fellow and Teaching Faculty Fellow recognitions.
• Elected Fellow of ASA (The Acoustical Society of America), 2013
• Elected Fellow of ASNT (The American Society for Nondestructive Testing), 2013
• Elected Fellow of SPIE (The International Society for Optics and Photonics), 2005
• Elected Fellow of ASCE (The American Society of Civil Engineers), 2000
• Elected Fellow of ASME (The American Society of Mechanical Engineers), 1999
• SPIE Community Champion Recognition – For contributing to the SPIE community in myriad of ways, 2021
• Best Paper Award 2004 from SPIE
• Best Paper Award 2000 from SPIE
• Best Paper Award 2001 from ASME NDE Division (awarded to his PhD student who is the leading author)
• Research paper recognized as among top 1% of acoustic papers: The paper “Acoustic Source Localization in Anisotropic Plates”, co-authored by Kundu, Nakatani and Takeda and published in Ultrasonics Vol. 52(6), pp. 740-746, earned a rank 132 among 20,857 acoustic papers (including medical acoustics), published in all journals during the period 2010 to 2014. In other words, this paper was rated among top 1% papers in acoustics for its citations. This recognition was made in 2017 based on the analysis done in 2016 and 2017.  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Wi60rKzhXzw_grnxEtgQpeP9tRFXZ_48ll17BoLGqhA/edit?usp=sharing is the link to the table listing top 500 papers in acoustics.
• Invited Professor from a number of foreign Universities (Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenberg, Sweden, 1989; Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland, 1996; University of Technology of Compiegne, France, 1997; University of Bordeaux, France, 1997, 2009; Ecole Normale Superior (ENS), Cachan, France, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010; University of Leipzig, Germany, 2003; University of Tokyo, Japan, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013; Technical University of Valencia or UPV, Spain, 2012; Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology or KAIST, South Korea, 2013; AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland, 2014, 2018; Hohai University in Nanjing, Harbin Institute of Technology, Jilin University, Xiamen University and Sichuan University, China, 2015, 2016, 2017. Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, 2016, Nanyang Institute of Technology, Singapore, 2017, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 2017, University of Naples, Italy, 2017. Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy, 2019.
• Plenary and Keynote talks in a number of conferences and workshops
• Plenary talk at the IMECE (International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition), Phoenix, Arizona, USA, Nov. 16, 2016
• Plenary talk at the ASNT Research Symposium in Anaheim, California, USA, March 18, 2015;
• One of four Plenary speakers at the 2013 Smart Structures/NDE Symposium, in San Diego, USA, March 10-14, 2013;
• Plenary talk at the SMART’09 (Smart Structures and Materials IV), Porto, Portugal, July 13-15, 2009;
• Keynote talk in 2nd CANEUS Fly-by-Wireless Workshop, Montreal, Canada, June 8-12, 2009;
• One of six Keynote talks at the International Symposium on Nondestructive Testing of Materials and Structure (NDTMS-2011), Instanbul, Turkey, May 16-18, 2011;
• Keynote talk in 150-Year Anniversary Conference at Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, West Bengal, India, Jan. 11-14, 2007,
• Four more Keynote talks in International Conference on Theoretical, Applied, Computational and Experimental Mechanics (ICTACEM) IIT Kharagpur, India in Dec. 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2007.
• Certificate of Appreciation from ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping (PVP) Division in ‘Deep Appreciation for His Valued Service in Advancing the Engineering Profession’, presented at the Honors and Awards Luncheon of PVP Conference in Toronto, Canada, July 18, 2012
• Outstanding Faculty Award from the Department of Civil Engineering & Engineering Mechanics for undergraduate teaching, selected by undergraduate students, 2009.
• Award for Excellence at the Students Interface, award from the Dean’s Office, May 2009  
• Outstanding Honors College Faculty Award by the University of Arizona Honors College, 2002
• Outstanding Asian Faculty Member of the year award at the University of Arizona in 1995
• UCLA Alumni Award - Outstanding Graduate Student of the year in the College of Engineering, 1981
• President of India Gold Medal (PGM) for ranking first among all graduating engineers from I.I.T. Kharagpur in 1979
• Hortense Fishbaugh Memorial Scholarship 1982-83 from UCLA
• University of California Regents' Fellowship 1979-81

Degrees

• Ph.D. Engineering (Mechanics & Structures)
• UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA
• Elastic Wave Propagation in Multilayered Solids
• M.S. Mechanics and Structures
• UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA
• Diffraction of Elastic Waves by a Surface Crack in a Plate.
• B.S. Mechanical Engineering
• IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India

Awards

• Elected Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• ASME, Fall 1999
• 2020 Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Kharagpur
• Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Fall 2020
• Second Best Paper Award of 2019 for ASME Journal - JNDE
• ASME - NDPD Division, Fall 2019
• Esteemed Faculty Member of the University of Arizona
• University of Arizona President's office, Spring 2019
• ASME NDPD Division's Founders Award
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Fall 2017
• SHM Life Time Achievement Award
• International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring, Fall 2015
• ASNT Research Council Award for Sustained Excellence 2015
• American Society for Nondestructive Testing, ASNT, Spring 2015
• Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America
• ASA - Acoustical Society of America, Summer 2013
• Fellow of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing
• ASNT - American Society for Nondestructive Testing, Summer 2013
• Engineering Research Faculty Fellow
• College of Engineering, University of Arizona, Fall 2012
• NDE Lifetime Achievement Award
• SPIE - the International Society for Optics and Photonics, Spring 2012
• Structural Health Monitoring Person of the Year
• Editorial Board of the Structural Health Monitoring - An International Journal, Fall 2008
• Elected Fellow of SPIE
• SPIE, Spring 2005
• Best Paper Award
• SPIE, Spring 2004
• Humboldt Research Prize (Senior Scientist Award)
• Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany, Fall 2003
• Elected Fellow of American Society of Civil Engineers
• ASCE, Fall 2000