PI About Diwakar
Diwakar Shukla is an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also an affiliate faculty in the Center for Biophysics and Quantitative biology, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Department of Plant Biology, Cancer Center at Illinois, Center for Digital Agriculture and NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling & Bioinformatics. His research work is focused on understanding the complex biological processes using novel physics-based models and techniques. He started his research career at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, India, where he received B. Tech and M. Tech. degrees in chemical engineering. He then joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering for his work on solution biochemistry with Prof. Bernhardt Trout. Before joining Illinois, he worked with Prof. Vijay Pande at Stanford University on developing distributed computing approaches for understanding protein dynamics.
Shukla has received numerous early-career faculty awards from the American Chemical Society, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. At Illinois, Shukla has been recognized for his research and teaching: he has been awarded the Dean’s Award for excellence in research; named a Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors (LEAP) scholar; and earned the School of Chemical Sciences’ Teaching Excellence Award.
Appointments Education
Selected Awards
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2021 List of Influential Researchers in Bioengineering
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, American Chemical Society
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2021 Maximizing Investigator Research Award
National Institutes of Health
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2021 Journal of Physical Chemistry and PHYS Division Lectureship Award
American Chemical Society
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2020 Dean's Award for Excellence in Research
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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2020 Emerging Young Investigator in Molecular System Design & Eng.
Royal Society of Chemistry
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2020 CAS Fellow
Center for Advance Study,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -
2019 SCS Excellence in Teaching Award
School of Chemical Sciences,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -
2019 Faculty Fellow
National Center for Supercomputing Applications,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -
2019 Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
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2016-2019 List of Excellent Teachers
Sp'16, Fa'16, Sp '17, Fa'17 and Fa'19
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -
2018 NSF Early CAREER Award
National Science Foundation
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2018 CoMSEF Young Investigator Award
American Institute of Chemical Engineers
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2018 OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award in Computational Chemistry
American Chemical Society
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2017 New Innovator Award in Food & Agriculture Research
Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research
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2015 Engineering Council Outstanding Advising Award
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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2015-2021 Blue Waters Professorship
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign