Cherukuri named Chair of Mechanical Engineering
April 21, 2026 - Carly Bowling
The University of New Mexico School of Engineering is proud to announce the hiring of Harish Cherukuri as Chair and William E. Baker Endowed Professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Cherukuri will join UNM this July from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he is a professor and former Chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science.
“Dr. Cherukuri’s experience as a chair positions him well to lead faculty and student success initiatives,” said Donna Riley, Jim and Ellen King Dean of Engineering and Computing. “His expertise in machine learning and advanced manufacturing will help expand the department’s research portfolio.”
He holds a bachelor’s degree from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad (’87), a master’s degree from Montana State University (’89) and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (’94) in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. His background is in computational mechanics and dynamic behavior of materials. Cherukuri’s research has appeared in many top-tier journals such as the International Journal of Plasticity, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, and Journal of Manufacturing and Materials Processing. In addition to teaching a variety of courses, he has advised and graduated more than 50 M.S. and Ph.D. students.
“Joining the department offers an exciting opportunity to learn from the people who make it run. I am looking forward to listening to the faculty, staff, and students to identify the strengths that will serve as our foundation,” Cherukuri said. “By prioritizing transparency and servant leadership, I hope to foster a collaborative space where everyone feels empowered to do their best work.”
With more than 15 years of administrative experience, Cherukuri said he seeks to uplift faculty and staff and enable opportunity with industry through a servant-like leadership style. He is deeply committed to the Sankofa principle, a philosophy of the Akan Tribe in Ghana, which emphasizes learning from the past to ensure future progress. Cherukuri plans to inform his leadership with a thoughtful understanding of the department’s history and a dedication to the collective success of the academic community.
Cherukuri is an award-winning teacher and researcher. He was a UNC Charlotte Maxheim Research Fellow from 2002 to 2003, a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellow to India in 2010-2011, and a UNC Charlotte Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) Faculty Fellow in 2012-2013. He has received multiple student-nominated awards throughout the course of his career and was the recipient of the Harshini V. de Silva Graduate Mentor Award in 2011 for excellence in graduate student mentoring.
Outside of his work, Cherukuri is an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction with a particular curiosity for the latest shifts in technology and how they shape our world. He and his wife are lifelong explorers who love travel and discovering new restaurants. He has recently become more interested in birding and bird photography — a passion that he hopes to continue pursuing in Albuquerque.
