ME Assistant Professor Aniruddh Vashisth has received the 2024 Young Composites Researcher Award from the American Society for Composites (ASC).

The award honors an early-career member of the composites community who has made a significant impact on the science and technology of composite materials through a sustained research effort. Vashisth was honored during the awards ceremony at the 2024 ASC conference.

“Receiving this award is an incredible honor, as it represents recognition from a community I deeply respect,” Vashisth says. “This award acknowledges the hard work and commitment that my current lab, myself, and my mentors have invested in advancing composites. This motivates me to aim to contribute meaningfully to the field. When I received the news, I felt both humbled and grateful, as well as excited to see the impact of our work acknowledged in such a way.”

Vashisth’s lab does interdisciplinary research on the fabrication, material characterization and analysis of sustainable composites; molecular dynamics simulations of polymers and nanofillers augmented by machine learning; and advanced manufacturing of materials using high energetics such as radio frequency and plasma. Recently, the lab’s work on sustainable composites and fabricating composites using energy-efficient manufacturing has gained traction among various researchers.

Vashisth credits his previous Ph.D. and postdoctoral research completed at the Pennsylvania State University on the mechanics of composites for laying the foundation for his lab’s work.