University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
104 South Wright Street, 
Urbana, IL 61801
Tel: 217-244-7316
E-mail: mohan_sankaran @ avs.org

R. MOHAN SANKARAN is currently a Professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1998, and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2004.

In 2005, he began his independent research career as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). He rose through all faculty ranks at CWRU, before moving to UIUC in August 2020. His research focuses on low-temperature, atmospheric-pressure plasmas for the synthesis of small-molecule chemicals and novel materials with applications in emerging electronics, medicine, and energy conversion.

Mohan’s first involvement in AVS was as a graduate student through the Southern California Chapter where he received a Best Student Paper award in 2002. Soon after, he attended his first national meeting in Denver in 2002 and has been an active member ever since. In 2011, he received the AVS Peter Mark Memorial Award.

His primary service has been to the Plasma Science and Technology Division (PSTD), where he has served as a member of the Executive Committee (2010-2012), the Student Affairs Coordinator (2012-2014), Treasurer (2014-2016), and Chair (2018). Among his contributions were special sessions commemorating the careers of Harold Winters in 2017 and John Coburn in 2019, and along with Sebastian Engelmann and Scott Walton, launching the PSTD Young Investigator Award to promote the advancement of young scientists and engineers.

He will be the AVS 68 Program Chair which will be held in Pittsburgh in 2022. Mohan has also served as the AVS Ohio Chapter Chair (2014-2020), hosting a meeting in 2015, and is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology (JVST).