Professor Mayuresh Kothare Named AAAS Fellow

Mayuresh V. Kothare, the R. L. McCann Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) at Lehigh, has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He was among 502 scientists and engineers honored this year by the AAAS, the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.

Kothare was recognized for his distinguished contributions to solving engineering problems that require assimilation of concepts from chemical engineering, systems and control theory, applied mathematics, and biomedical/neuroengineering systems.

“AAAS fellows are recognized leaders in our scientific community,” said Lehigh Provost Nathan Urban. “Lehigh’s strategic plan promotes the importance of ensuring that Lehigh faculty take on and are recognized for these kinds of roles in our fields. I am excited to have Mayuresh join this distinguished group and look forward to having other Lehigh faculty achieve similar distinction in the coming years.”

“Mayuresh is an exceptional engineer and scholar working across disciplines, and very deserving of this recognition,” said Lehigh President Joseph J. Helble ’82.

Stephen P. DeWeerth, dean of the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, noted, “This is stellar recognition of the deep scientific insights and advances Mayuresh has made during his career—all on top of his nine years serving as chair in ChBE and his substantial additional service to the university. He is truly an exceptional member of the Lehigh community.”

Kothare joins Lehigh’s most recent AAAS Fellow, Vassie Ware (elected 2020) and six other current Lehigh faculty and administrators as AAAS Fellows:

• Vassie Ware, professor of molecular biology (2020)
• Joseph J. Helble ’82, Lehigh president and professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering (2017)
• Robert Flowers, the Herbert J. and Ann L. Siegel Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (2012)
• Stephen P. DeWeerth, dean of the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science (2010)
• Zakya H. Kafafi, adjunct professor/distinguished research fellow, Center for Photonics and Nanoelectronics, department of electrical and computer engineering (2008)
• John D. Simon, Lehigh president from 2015 to 2021 and professor of practice in Lehigh’s Educational Leadership Program (2000)
• Elsa Reichmanis, professor and Carl Robert Anderson Chair in chemical engineering, (1997)

Kothare’s interdisciplinary research interests span the problems of constrained and optimal predictive control theory, closed-loop robustness analysis, modeling and machine learning control of chemical, biomedical and neuro engineered systems.

"I am deeply honored and at the same time humbled to have been elected a Fellow of AAAS,” Kothare said. “Being an engineer, it is humbling to be elected to a society which has a primary emphasis in the sciences.”

Elsa Reichmanis, a colleague who is also a Fellow, said Kothare “has made many notable research contributions marked by a strong emphasis on multidisciplinary approaches to solving engineering problems that require an assimilation of concepts from chemical engineering, systems and control theory, applied mathematics and more recently biomedical/neuroengineering systems. At the same time, he is dedicated to mentoring students and younger colleagues, and serving the engineering profession. Mayuresh is exceptionally deserving of recognition as an AAAS Fellow."

Kothare, who is affiliated with the department of bioengineering and also has a courtesy appointment in the department of electrical and computer engineering, came to the Rossin College in 1998. He was named chair of Lehigh's department of chemical and biomolecular engineering in 2012, serving for nine years until 2021.

As chair, Kothare initiated the major step of incorporating the biomolecular component of the discipline into the department’s official name. He focused ChBE’s research on the areas of materials and interfaces; energy and the environment; biomolecular sciences; and systems, computation, and simulation, and he supported the development of Lehigh’s department of bioengineering. He also oversaw the hiring of six tenured/tenure-track faculty members.

In 2012, he was named as an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fellow. He was cited for "contributions to multivariable constrained control systems and model predictive control." He is also a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the IFAC High Impact paper award in 2023, and the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2020 from his alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Kothare has served as associate editor of AUTOMATICA and the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, as well as guest editor for Journal of Process Control and the IFAC-sponsored conference DYCOPS in 2010. He was appointed deputy editor-in-chief of IFAC PapersOnLine, an on-line archive of all peer-reviewed conference proceedings sponsored by the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), in 2011.

Kothare’s research publications have been cited more than 10,000 times, according to Google Scholar, earning an h-index of 38 and marking him as one of the leading experts in the world in his field.

He received his bachelor of technology from the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay) , and his masters degree and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.

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