Dr. Manu Santhanam

Dr. Manu Santhanam is a professor in the Building Technology, Construction Materials, and Management (BTCM) Group, Department of Civil Engineering, and currently Dean for Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (ICSR), IIT Madras. He completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from IIT Madras in 1994. He joined Purdue University for a Master’s program to explore wider research opportunities. Professor Manu joined Sika Corporation, USA as Senior R&D Chemist in May 1996 and served for more than 2 years. Later, he pursued his doctoral research from Purdue University, USA. He joined back his alma mater, Purdue University, as an instructor in May 2001 for short period. In October 2001, he joined IIT Madras as Assistant Professor in the BTCM division of the Department of Civil Engineering. He became Associate Professor on March 2009 and was promoted as Professor on July 2013. He teaches undergraduate and graduate-level courses mainly in the areas of construction materials, concrete technology, non-destructive testing and characterization of construction materials. His research domains cover cement chemistry and multi-scale characterization of concrete including non-destructive testing, assessment of deterioration mechanisms in concrete and masonry structures, 3D printing of concrete structures, concrete durability and use of supplementary cementing materials. He is also a part of the National Centre for Safety of Heritage Structures (NCSHS) in IITM which focuses on scientific methods for conservation of heritage structures. He is actively involved in several research projects funded by government and private agencies on the design, durability studies and development of performance specification for high performance and self-compacting concrete. He has co-authored more than 70+ international journal publications, 30+ national journal publications and about 70 conference papers on construction material properties and performance. His contributions extend to several book chapters which he co-authored with national and international researchers. He is also active in various professional associations such as ACI, ICI, and RILEM and has been distinguished as a RILEM fellow in 2019. He is also a member of Editorial Board in leading international journal on construction materials such as Advances in Cement Research, ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering (Associate Editor), Journal of Sustainable Cement-Based Materials and Journal of Cement and Concrete Composites.