Meet our Team
Punit Kumar
Dr. Punit Kumar is an Assistant Professor in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, where he leads MEDHA Lab — Materials for Extremes by Designing Hierarchical structures using AI. His research integrates advanced manufacturing, fracture mechanics, and physics-informed AI to design damage-tolerant materials for extreme environments. Before joining NTU, he was a Project Scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and an affiliated Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He earned his Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Dr. Kumar received the Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF) Fellowship in 2026 and was named among MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 Asia Pacific the same year. His earlier recognitions include the Acta Student Award (2019) and inclusion in the Stanford/Elsevier list of the world’s top 2% of scientists.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Tiffany Wu
tiffany.wu@ntu.edu.sg LinkedIn: Click hereTiffany Wu is Taiwanese, born in the US, and grew up in China. She earned her B.S. in Engineering Physics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2019, during which she completed an exchange research program at Kyushu University's I2CNER in 2018. She went on to receive her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University in 2024, under the supervision of Prof. David Dunand.
Her doctoral research focused on developing creep-resistant Al-Ce based eutectic alloys through casting and additive manufacturing using laser powder-bed fusion. As part of this work, she conducted exchange research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2022–23 on additive alloys. She then completed a year of postdoctoral research within the same group, focusing on high-throughput material design and testing of gradient materials, including superalloys, with an emphasis on creep and oxidation behavior.
She has since joined MEDHA Lab, continuing her work on cast and additive alloys while expanding into new areas, including refractory medium-entropy alloys studied at both much higher and lower temperatures, and fracture behavior.
Hobbies: A fan of Japanese anime and likes to draw fan art.
MSc Students
Chan Yuet Yan
YUETYAN001@e.ntu.edu.sgPhD Students
Gurharinder Singh
SI0001ER@e.ntu.edu.sgGurharinder Singh was born and brought up in Delhi, India. He earned his B.Tech. in Material Science and Engineering, with a Minor in Quantum Technologies from the Department of Physics, at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India (2025).
Following this, he worked under Prof. K. B. Balasubramanian on layered sputtered superconducting films, in research funded by ISRO (2026).
He has since joined MEDHA Lab, where he is working on refractory high entropy alloys and soft material systems manufactured through additive manufacturing, with a focus on their fracture behavior.
Hobbies: Music and games.
Fahad Mohammed
FAHAD002@e.ntu.edu.sg LinkedIn: Click hereFahad Mohammed graduated his B.Tech in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Andhra Pradesh, India (2021–2025), where he conducted heat treatment processes, metallographic analysis, and mechanical testing of materials.
He went on to pursue his master's in Advanced Composites at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom (2025–2026), where his research with GKN Aerospace focused on defect-driven failure in bonded composite joints using FEA, and he contributed to publications and conferences with TU Delft, Netherlands, and the University of the West of England, UK.
His work combines finite element modelling, experimental validation, and data-driven AI/ML to understand material behavior and fracture mechanics, and he continues this work at MEDHA Lab.
Hobbies: Sports and walking.
Undergraduate Students
Keith Tor Jun Yu
KTOR001@e.ntu.edu.sg
Saranretnam S/O Chelvaretnam
SARA0084@e.ntu.edu.sg
Shekhar Rajat
RAJAT004@e.ntu.edu.sg