ODES-lab Principal Investigator
lab director, faculty mentor and team builder / leader
Writer: Poet & Kavi
Vivek Sharma
Vivek Sharma is a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). His Soft Matter ODES-lab (optics, dynamics, elasticity, and self-assembly) develops distinctive experiments and theories to analyze interfacial and nonlinear flows, colloidal forces, optics, shear and extensional rheology, and processability of industrial and biological soft matter. His research program exploits and advances surfactant, proteins, & polymer physics, rheology and mechanics, scaling, and fizzics (the science of drops, bubbles, jets, foams, and emulsions), with application in macromolecular engineering of formulations, including paints & coatings, fibers, cosmetics, sprays, and plant-based foods. Vivek Sharma writes poems and essays in English and Hindi that appear in journals like Poetry, Atlanta Review, Cha, and Muse India.
Vivek joined UIC in November 2012, following a postdoctoral stint in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He obtained his Ph. D. (Polymers/MSE, 2008) and M.S. (Chemical Engineering) from Georgia Tech, M.S. (Polymer Science) from the University of Akron, and B.Tech. (Textile) from IIT Delhi. He has held visiting professor appointments at ESPCI Paris, the University of Chicago, and Stanford University. At UIC, Vivek has been recognized with the College of Engineering (COE) Teaching Award (2017, 2023 & 2025) and the COE Advising Award (2022). Vivek was selected as the Distinguished Young Rheologist by TA Instruments in 2015, won the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award in 2019, and he received the 2023 John H. Dillon medal from the American Physical Society.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
| University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL. Professor, Chemical Engineering. Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering. Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering. |
08.2025- |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. Post-doctoral Associate, Mechanical Eng. & Hatsopoulos Microfluids Lab (HML) Instructor, Mechanical Engineering |
09.2008-08-2012 |
| Visiting professor appointments and honors | |
| ESPCI Paris -PSL Visiting Professor, Chaire Paris Sciences |
11.2025-12-2025 |
| University of Chicago, Hyde Park, Chicago, IL. Visiting Associate Professor, Pritzker School for Molecular Engineering (PME). Visiting Assistant Professor, Institute for Molecular Engineering (now PME), |
01.2023-06.2023 09.2017-12.2017 |
| Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
Visiting Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering |
09.22-12.22 |
EDUCATION & TRAINING
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Post-doctoral Associate, Mechanical Eng. & Hatsopoulos Microfluids Lab (HML) |
09.08-08.12 |
| Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA. Ph.D. in Polymer Science & Eng. (Materials Sci. & Eng.), with a Minor in Physics. Advisor, Mohan Srinivasarao (MSE). Structural color, colloidal gold & breath figures. |
08.03-09.08 |
| M.S. in Chemical Engineering, with a Minor in Nonlinear Dynamics & Chaos. Mentors, Michael Schatz & Roman Grigoriev (Physics). Opto-microfluidics & chaotic mixing. |
09.04-02.06 |
| University of Akron, Akron, OH. M.S. in Polymer Science. Advisor: Shi-Qing Wang. Polymer dynamics & polymer physics. |
08.01-05.03 |
| Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India. B. Tech. in Textile Technology, Advisor: P. Bajaj. Carbon fibers & fiber science. |
1997-05.01 |
A tribute, in the Ghazal form, to Bob Bird of Transport in Physics of Fluids
(With an audio recording and an essay on the Ghazal form, as supplementary info)
Poems published in Rheology Bulletin:
Explosive Droplets
Saga of a Crumpled Piece of Paper
Jump
A tribute to Vivek’s poetry mentor, his Gurudev Thomas Lux at The Cortland Review
Special acknowledgments:
Poetry at Tech: Gurudev Lux, Ginger Munchison, Travis Denton, Bruce McEver & many visitors to Poetry of Tech, especially Chard DeNiord.
The community of writers and friends at the Sarah Lawrence Summer Program for Writers, especially my mentors Stuart Dischell, Stephen Dobyns, and Jeffery McDaniel.
Indebted to my exceptional mentors:
Doctoral research: Mohan Srinivasarao (GaTech) and post-doctoral research: Gareth McKinley (MIT),
UG research: (Late) Pushpa Bajaj (IIT Delhi),
M.S. research: Mike Schatz and Roman Grigoriev (Georgia Tech)
Plus, Ashok Misra (IIT Delhi), Ali Dhinojwala (Akron), and Ph. D. committee members, especially Mike Schatz, Paul Neitzel, & Bill Koros (GaTech), and more.