Dr. Karan Surana, born in India, received his BE in mechanical engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, India, in 1965. He then attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he obtained his MS and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering in 1967 and 1970, respectively. For 15 years, he worked in industry in research and development in various areas of computational mechanics and software development: SDRC, Cincinnati (1970–1973); EMRC, Detroit (1973–1978); and McDonnell-Douglas, St. Louis (1978–1984). In 1984, he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering faculty at the University of Kansas, where he is currently the Deane E. Ackers University Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
Dr. Surana’s areas of interest and expertise are computational mathematics, computational mechanics, and continuum mechanics. He is the author of over 350 research reports, conference papers, and journal articles. He has served as advisor and chairman of 50 MS students and 25 PhD students in various areas of computational mathematics and continuum mechanics. He has delivered many plenary and keynote lectures in various national and international conferences and congresses on computational mathematics, computational mechanics, and continuum mechanics.
Dr. Surana has also served on international advisory committees of many conferences and has co-organized mini symposia on the k-version of the finite element method, computational methods, and constitutive theories at the U.S. national congresses of Computational Mechanics organized by the U.S. Association of Computational Mechanics (USACM). He has also organized a mini symposium on classical and non-classical continuum mechanics at the Society of Engineering Science (SES). He is a member of the International Association of Computational Mechanics (IACM), USACM, and SES, as well as a fellow and life member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
Dr. Surana’s most notable contributions to his field include: large deformation finite element formulations of shells; the k-version of the finite element method; operator classification and variationally consistent integral forms in methods of approximations for BVPs and IVPs; and ordered rate constitutive theories for solid and fluent continua. His present research work is on non-classical continuum theories for solid and fluent continua and associated constitutive theories. He is the author of recently published textbooks: Advanced Mechanics of Continua (CRC/Taylor & France); The Finite Element Method for Boundary Value Problems: Mathematics and Computations (CRC/Taylor & Francis); The Finite Element Method for Initial Value Problems: Mathematics and Computations (CRC/Taylor & Francis); and Numerical Methods and Methods of Approximation in Science and Engineering (CRC/Taylor & Francis).