Vikram Deshpande

Vikram Sudhir Deshpande, born on 29 February 1972, is an Indian-born British engineer and materials scientist who is Professor of Materials Engineering in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He grew up in Dadar, Mumbai, took a B.Tech. at the Indian Institute of Technology in 1994, then moved to Cambridge for an M.Phil. in engineering and a Ph.D. completed in 1998. His research turned from transportation to the mechanics of materials, including small-scale and micro-architectured materials, in a long collaboration with Norman Fleck. His achievements include the development of metallic wood, a nickel sheet with wood-like nanoscale pores that is as strong as titanium but four to five times lighter. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2020 and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2023, and he edits the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids.