Brown Engineering Professor Pradeep Guduru will receive the Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM) B.J. Lazan Award at the 2026 annual SEM Conference and Exposition on Experimental and Applied Mechanics, held June 1-4 in Norfolk, Va. Guduru will be honored “for pioneering contributions to the mechanics of dynamic failure, electromechanics of batteries, and the development of high-speed diagnostics and instrumentation.”
The Lazan award was established in 1967 to recognize individuals who have made outstanding original technical contributions to experimental mechanics. In 1973 this award was named in honor of Dr. Benjamin J. Lazan, a pioneer in his field who achieved recognition in dynamic testing, vibration, materials damping and fatigue. The award continues to honor inventors, developers or contributors to the introduction of new devices or methods. Brown School of Engineering alumni Ares Rosakis Sc.M.’80 Ph.D.’83 (1996), Guruswami Ravichandran Sc.M. ’83 Ph.D. ’87 (2005), Horacio Espinosa Sc.M.’89, Sc.M.’90, Ph.D.’92 (2008), and K.T. Ramesh Sc.M. ’85, Sc.M. ’86 Ph.D. ’88 (2012) are also past recipients of the Lazan award.
Guduru, who is the Co-Director of the Mechanics of Undersea Science and Engineering Center at Brown, received the James R. Rice medal of the Society of Engineering Science in 2020, a PECASE - Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2007, and a National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2006.
He received a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Sri Venkateswara University, India, and a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, before earning his Ph.D. in Aeronautics from California Institute of Technology in 2001. Following graduation, he joined the Division of Engineering at Brown University as a postdoctoral research associate with Professor L.B. Freund and subsequently joined the Solid Mechanics faculty in 2002. Guduru has held visiting professor appointments at the University of California, Berkeley during 2008-09 and at Stanford University during 2015-16.
Guduru is a past Chair of the Executive Committee of the Applied Mechanics Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids and Acta Mechanica Sinica.