Dr. Pratyaksh Karan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Jodhpur. His research lies at the intersection of fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, and transport phenomena, with a focus on elastohydrodynamics, soft matter mechanics and applications and transport phenomena in porous media. His work combines analytical modelling, numerical simulations, and dedicated in-vitro experiments to investigate how flow, deformation, and transport interact across micro- to macro- length scales.

Dr. Karan’s research spans a range of applications, including microfluidics, biological transport processes, and environmental flows. He is particularly interested in understanding transport in deformable and heterogeneous systems such as soft tissues, hydrogels, and porous geological formations. His work addresses fundamental questions related to mixing, dispersion, and irreversibility in coupled flow–deformation systems, with implications for drug delivery, contaminant transport, and emerging soft-material technologies.

Prior to joining IIT Jodhpur, Dr. Karan completed his dual-degree (B.Tech. and M.Tech.) in Mechanical Engineering with specialization in Thermal Science and Engineering and his PhD from IIT Kharagpur, followed by postdoctoral research at IIT Gandhinagar and at CNRS Geosciences Rennes, France. He was awarded the ANRF Ramanujan Fellowship (2025) and the Région Bretagne Bienvenue Postdoctoral Fellowship (2024), and received the Horizon Europe MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship Seal of Excellence (2022) and the Early Career Postdoctoral Fellowship and Research Grant at IIT Gandhinagar (2021). Over the course of his doctoral and postdoctoral work, he has collaborated with researchers at international institutions such as Purdue University, CNRS Geosciences Rennes and University of Brussels, contributing to interdisciplinary efforts at the interface of fluid mechanics, transport phenomena, and soft matter physics and applications.