Dr. Neha Khatri is Principal Scientist at the Department of Manufacturing Science & Instrumentation, CSIR-CSIO, Chandigarh. She is a young researcher working in the area of ultra precision machining and optical metrology techniques for smart manufacturing.
Dr. Khatri earned her bachelor’s in mechanical engineering in 2010 from the University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Kanpur and her master’s in advanced instrumentation engineering in 2012 from the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Chennai. She then joined as a scientist at CSIR-CSIO, Chandigarh in November, 2012. She received her Ph.D. in 2019 in opto-mechanical instrumentation from AcSIR, Chennai. She made significant contributions to advanced manufacturing techniques using ultra precision machining protocol for the development of various techniques and products for societal and strategic applications. Her research findings and investigations have received recognition through high impact publications, international collaborations, as well as transfer of technologies. Dr. Khatri’s scientific recognitions include Raman Research Fellowship 2021-22, SERB Women Excellence Award 2022, INAE Young Engineer Award 2021, and IEI Young Engineer Award 2022 for her notable contribution in the area of ultra-precision machining. She has received many best paper awards in various international conferences. She was inducted in the second BRICS Young Scientist Conclave to represent India at Hangzhou, China in 2017.
The key hurdle in high throughput precision freeform optics fabrication is quality control. As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research postdoctoral research fellow, Dr. Khatri is working at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Her research focuses on developing on-machine metrology for precision fabrication of freeform optics with fast measurements and analyses for closed loop control and optimization.