Karthik Ramani is an Indian born American researcher, mechanical engineer, and entrepreneur.[1] He is the Donald W. Feddersen Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, with courtesy appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Educational Studies in the College of Education.[2] Previously, from 2001-2008, he was the Director of the Center for Information Sciences in Engineering at Purdue University.[3]
He became an Assistant Professor at Purdue University’s School of Mechanical Engineering in 1991, an Associate Professor in 1997, a Professor in 2001, the Donald W. Feddersen Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 2010, and appointed as a Distinguished Professor in 2020.
His research areas include design, manufacturing and materials processing, robotics, and computational engineering with interests in human skill and augmentation, collaborative and hybridized intelligence, deep learning of shapes and computer vision, human-robot-machine interactions, making to manufacturing (M2M), factory of the future and robotics, and manufacturing productivity.
Ramani's papers titled Three-dimensional shape searching: state-of-the-art review and future trends (2005)[4] and On visual similarity based 2D drawing retrieval (2006),[5] along with subsequent patents,[6][7] led to the formation of VizSeek (formerly Imaginestics), the world’s first commercial shape-based search engine.
For his work at VizSeek, Ramani was awarded the Outstanding Commercialization Award for Purdue University Faculty in 2009.[8]