L. Mahadevan
Department of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Harvard University
L. Mahadevan studied engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology-Chennai before turning to applied mathematics and mechanics at Stanford University, where he obtained his PhD. Prior to joining Harvard University in the fall of 2003, he was the inaugural holder of the Schlumberger Chair in Complex Physical Systems in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University, and simultaneously a Professorial Fellow at Trinity College. He has taught and held visiting positions around the world including stints at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris and the University of Chile, Santiago. His work centers around using mathematics to understand the nonlinear and non-equilibrium mechanical behavior of living and nonliving matter, particularly at the scale of the everyday world and is thus closely tied in with experiments and experience. A particular joy is "to discover the sublime in the mundane" and uncover explanations of robust everyday phenomena that are easy to observe, often not so well understood, and are of relevance far beyond what might be first envisaged.