Artwork by Akshita Arora

From conversation on:
Dec 03, 2021

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In the completeness of meddling with the symphonies of the mechanical world, our guest for this episode, Prof. Kurien Issac, gives us a peek into the extremely fascinating and intriguing field of kinematics and mechanics, which covers the beautiful overlapping bits of mechanical and aerospace engineering, while introducing further directions of research including robotics. Throughout his research work so far, Prof. Issac, has made significant contributions in the wide areas of mechanics, robotics, and aerospace, and has even created quite a number of novel mechanisms, ranging from variations of four-legged robots to those of ornithopters. Currently a Senior Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIST, his research directions span the wide arenas of optimization techniques and designs, robotics, mechanism control, humanoids and landing rovers. Dive in to the conversation, as Prof. Issac takes us along a breezy ride through some very internal understandings of the mechanical world, introducing us to the gears of our fast moving lives that are enabled in many dimensions by the excellence mastered by the researchers and engineers practicing in the field. It was an absolute pleasure to uncover some exceedingly intricate ideas, which Prof. Issac articulates with stellar insights, and inspiring humility, lined with equal amounts of fascination!

Prof. Kurien Issac is an expert in the field that take roots in mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering- the realm of kinematics and optimization. He completed his bachelors from the College of Engineering, Trivandrum, and went on to pursue his Masters in ‘Mechanics and Design’ from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Following this, he spent some time at Tata Consulting Engineers before going further for his PhD to the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He thesis addressed the topics of optimal synthesis of linkage mechanisms from the research carried out through the graduate work, following which he took up a faculty position at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Prof. Issac currently carries out his research at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Trivandrum where he holds the position of a senior professor. Throughout his research work so far, Prof. Issac has worked on, studied, and has even created quite a number of novel mechanisms, ranging from variations of four-legged robots to those of ornithopters. His research directions span the wide arenas of optimization techniques and designs, robotics, mechanism control, kinematics of mechanisms such as humanoids and landing rovers.