Dr. Keerthana Kirupakaran is an Assistant Professor in the Building Technology and Construction Management division of the Civil Engineering department at IIT Madras. She completed her B. Tech in Civil Engineering from National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli. Post her bachelors, she worked for two years as a design engineer at Larsen and Toubro construction limited where she was involved in the analysis and design of reinforced concrete structural elements of commercial buildings. Motivated to develop expertise and solve civil engineering problems related to materials and structural mechanics, she pursued her masters and PhD in structural engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Her doctoral research was focused on understanding and modelling the fracture characteristics of concrete structure/materials under fatigue loading which are prominently observed in bridges, pavements and offshores structures. Her expertise lies in conducting large scale concrete testing, life-cycle modeling using damage and fracture mechanics framework and characterization of fracture mechanisms using digital image correlation and acoustic emission techniques. Overarching theme of her research is to understand the behavior of the infrastructure materials through experimental mechanics and subsequently use this knowledge to develop models to predict the life and residual strength of the structure. At IIT Madras, she is developing further on her research interests such as fatigue fracture of fiber reinforced concrete, green concrete, corrosion fatigue and acoustic emission-based data-driven models.