Shravan Pradeep earned three degrees in chemical engineering: his bachelor's degree in 2012 from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University, India, his master's in 2015 from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, India, and his PhD in 2021 from North Carolina State University. Currently, he is a Soft and Living Matter Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. His PhD work centered on colloidal mechanics and chemistry, revealing the rules that govern shear thickening suspensions. In his three years at Penn, he resolved disputes and contradictory results about debris-flow rheology, developed a model experimental soft earth material to discover the origins of complex rheologies, and kickstarted experiments on underwater avalanches. He also solved the mechanics of “magic mud,” the mysterious naturally harvested mud paste that is the only sanctioned grip enhancer in Major League Baseball. This work recently was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Pradeep is ironing out a contract with a major company to use his techniques for quantifying skin feel of creams. His future faculty research program will interface the areas of multiscale fluid mechanics, biological fluid dynamics, and environmental sustainability toward engineering sustainable structured matter. He is a member of the Climate, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee at Penn, and he serves as an online instructor for Skype-a-Scientist. He believes the future of STEM education demands a shift from traditional teaching methods to a more inclusive, learner-centered approach that connects academic learning to real-life problems.

Research Interests

Engineering Sustainable Structured Soft Matter