M. Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean of engineering, has appointed Dr. Sharath Girimaji head of the Department of Ocean Engineering at Texas A&M University. The appointment of Girimaji, who has been serving as interim head of the department, is effective Oct. 1.
Prior to serving as the interim head of the department, Girimaji was the General Dynamics Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M. He assumed the position of interim head of ocean engineering in the fall of 2015 when the department was formed.
Girimaji received his BTech degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras and his master’s and doctorate in mechanical engineering from Cornell University.
He worked for nine years at NASA Langley Research Center, primarily in the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering (ICASE). He joined Texas A&M in November 1999 as an associate professor in the aerospace engineering department.
Girimaji has served the department in various capacities including tenure and promotion committee chair for four years.
His areas of research include: complex fluid flows (turbulence); chemically reacting flows; and mathematical/analytical techniques for multiscale, multi-physics engineering systems.
Girimaji is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.