New Mechanical Engineering Faculty: Harsh Sharma

Dr. Harsh Sharma will join the Department of Mechanical Engineering as an Assistant Professor in August 2025.

The Sharma research group will focus on integrating first principles and domain-specific knowledge with machine learning/AI techniques for design, analysis, and control of complex and large-scale dynamical systems, with an emphasis on digital twins. The objective is to develop scientific machine learning techniques that can learn physically interpretable and robust dynamic models with improved training efficiency and generalizability while simultaneously ensuring the exact satisfaction of physical laws. Drawing on tools and concepts from computational science, dynamics and control, and machine learning, the group will develop principled data-driven methods for diverse applications ranging from soft robotics and structural dynamics to astrodynamics and computational physics.

Sharma earned his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2020. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego.