Professor Krishan Kumar Chawla

Professor Krishan Kumar Chawla

Prof. Krishan Kumar Chawla passed away peacefully on December 4, 2025, surrounded by his family at the age of 83. He was an incredible husband, father, son, brother, educator, mentor, colleague, and friend.

Krish, as he was known by his friends and colleagues, was born in India and grew up in New Delhi. He was always a top student and had a strong interest in metallurgy. At the time, in the 1960s, he attended the only top institute to offer an undergraduate degree in metallurgy – Banaras Hindu University (BHU, now the Indian Institute of Technology – BHU). He was the first member of his family to go abroad, when he received a full scholarship to do his PhD at the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). His time at UIUC molded him in many different ways. Through his PhD work on Tungsten fiber/Copper metal matrix composites, he began to develop a life-long love for composite materials and mechanical behavior. He also developed his life-long love for swimming. For many years, he would rise daily at 5 AM and swim laps, followed by a hot shower and a close shave.

Toward the end of his PhD Krish got married to his wife of 56 years, Nivedita. In Urbana they went out for late night pizza and spent late nights together in the lab. On the advice of a friend, the young couple decided to try an adventure. In the late 60s they decided to move to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Krish started a position at the Instituto Militar de Engenharia (IME), a premier engineering institute. He built the mechanical metallurgy program into the premier location for materials in Latin America. The first several months in Brazil were challenging, due to the new culture and language. He would spend every Sunday with the newspaper and a dictionary to learn the language, as well as taking classes to learn Portuguese. By his second semester, he was teaching in fluent Portuguese. He loved the tropical fruits, particularly papaya, and reading the Jornal do Brasil.

In the mid-80s he returned to Urbana to spend a sabbatical at UIUC. The plan was to return to Brazil, but an offer came from a small, rigorous engineering school in New Mexico, called New Mexico Tech. At Tech he enjoyed working with sharp engineering students, the beautiful weather and landscape of the southwest, as well as walking to work. After over a decade in Socorro, NM, Krish went to the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He spent over two decades in Birmingham, including serving as department chair of the Mechanical and Materials Engineering department, and eventually achieving Emeritus status.

Krish made seminal contributions to the field of Materials Science and Engineering. He loved to read, to have intellectual discussions and had a lifelong penchant for learning. His students joked that when they brought up a paper they had found, he would already know about it. He loved the process of teaching and writing. Krish wrote pioneering textbooks which are part of almost every materials engineering student’s education. He was the first to write a book that covered all types of composites – metal, ceramic, and polymer matrix composites. His book on the Mechanical Behavior of Materials, now its third edition, is a staple of every undergraduate, graduate student, and professional working in the area around the world. He was editor of International Materials Reviews (IMR) and grew the journal’s quality and impact over many years. He won many international awards including being Fellow of ASM international, the TMS Educator Award, Distinguished Alumnus Award from BHU, and the Distinguished Researcher Award from New Mexico Tech. Krish firmly believed that there are many forms of teaching, including outside the classroom. He valued mentoring students and early-career faculty. He treated his students with love and affection, having them over to the house for dinner over Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Krish was a dedicated family man who loved to spend time with his wife and children, Nikhil and Kanika. He worked with them on their homework every evening, always insisting on a clean sheet of paper and sharp pencil. He was always a strong proponent of using SI units. His rigorous, disciplined, patient, and loving approach molded his kids, both PhDs in their own right. His son Nikhil was his colleague and collaborator in the field of Materials. They wrote a book on Metal Matrix Composites, together, as well as co-authoring many journal papers. He enjoyed learning about tissue engineering from his daughter Kanika. They worked on the indices for his book on many train rides in Europe. It was fun to engage in discussions with him on various topics; he always welcomed learning something new. He particularly loved to be around his grandchildren.

Krish loved to travel and experience the small, precious details in life. He had friends and colleagues all over the world and spent many sabbaticals and visiting professorships, including at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin. Within the US, he spent sabbaticals at UIUC, Northwestern University where he was the Eshbach Society Distinguished Visiting Scholar, and Arizona State University. He served as a program manager in the Division of Materials Research at the US National Science Foundation.

Krish had varied interests outside of materials science and engineering. He had a great interest in both Indian and western classical music, as well as bhajans. He loved both instrumental and vocal forms of music and even attended a workshop on Dhrupad singing. His love of music connected to his spiritual side, where he was a student of the Gita, Ramcharitmanas, and other sacred Hindu texts, and regularly practiced kriya yoga. He loved visiting the Kauai Hindu Monastery in Hawaii.

He is survived by his wife Nivedita, son Nikhil (Anita), daughter Kanika (Nimeesh), grandsons Kunal, Kush, Deven, and Arjun, sister Sunita, and brother Shiv.

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