Karthik Nayani

Karthik Nayani is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Arkansas, College of Engineering, since Fall 2020. His research focuses on designing biologically and technologically relevant soft materials to address challenges in health, environment, and materials science.

• Education: PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology (2017), Postdoctoral Scholar at Cornell University.
• Research Interests: Liquid-liquid phase separation, interfacial phenomena, biosensors, transport mechanisms for rare-earth minerals, anisotropic fluids as functional materials, and active transport at interfaces.
• Teaching: Thermodynamics, Colloids and Interfacial Engineering, Fluids.

His work spans soft materials, active matter, and self-assembly, with applications in biosensing and environmental separations. Publications highlight innovations in liquid crystal-based platforms for spike protein detection, collagen templating for neural tissue engineering, and machine learning-enhanced heat stress sensing. Key awards include the NSF CAREER Award (2025), ACS PRF Award (2022), and USDA New Investigator Award (2022).