Dr. Ajit has obtained his Doctorate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering (Spl. Production Engineering) from IIT Delhi. As a mechanical engineer, he completed his B.E. from VTU Belgaum and M.Tech in the core specialisation of Manufacturing Engineering from IIT(ISM) Dhanbad before starting his doctoral studies. As part of his M.Tech, he was selected to carry out his project work in the area of Metal Additive Manufacturing at RRCAT Indore (a unit of the Department of Atomic Energy) for one year (2015-2016).
Major part of his research focuses on physical metallurgy, metal additive manufacturing (LENS, WAAM and LPBF), and advanced manufacturing techniques (ultrasonic assisted sintering and customized pressure assisted conventional sintering, etc.) to improve metallic material properties according to the application.
During his doctoral studies, he has also worked as a teaching assistant in various courses and shown his potential in academic-related work (like teaching, conducting lab, etc.). Dr. Kumar has been granted two patents for his PhD work and has also published his work in peer-reviewed journals of high repute, including Mechanical Sciences, Journal of Magnesium and Alloys, Journal of Alloys and Compounds, Journal of Manufacturing Processes, etc.
After completion of his PhD in June 2021, he was offered to work on the Indo-Russian DST project as a Postdoctoral Fellow at IIT Indore. During his stay of eight months at IIT Indore, he has developed a new method of fabricating Belleville springs using Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM). The Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the novel approach was scaled to level 6 by IIT Indore. The manuscript related to the research work has been published in Materials Today Communications. Moreover, he has published two SCI articles as co-authors during my tenure at IIT Indore.
In March 2022, he received the prestigious award of ICMR-RA fellowship to carry out his second post-doctoral work at IISc Bangalore as PI on the ICMR project entitled “Development of biodegradable orthopedic fixation device for clinical applications. From the proposed work, he has filed one patent and completed three research articles. In total, Dr. Kumar has published seven SCI articles (Q1=5, Q2=2) as a main author and two as a co-author (Q2=2) with the accumulative impact factor of 55. Additionally, he has published four book chapters on Additive Manufacturing’s role in biomedical and customer-specific applications.
Dr. Kumar has successfully completed the ICMR funded project in July 2024 and then joined NAM:TECH as an Assistant Professor in the group of smart manufacturing. The activities he enjoys in his spare time include cooking, playing cricket, swimming and visiting new places with family.
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