Institut for Mekanik og Produktion

Dr. Subburaj Karupppasamy is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering at Aarhus University. His current research focuses on developing data-driven engineering solutions in terms of medical devices, methodologies, and analysis tools for solving pressing issues in musculoskeletal disorders. He uses mechanical engineering principles, design methods, clinical data, and biological knowledge to understand those issues and develop data-driven design solutions. Key challenges in this research direction come from the complexity of realizing these engineering solutions in biological and clinical settings. He develops solutions to these relevant issues through interdisciplinary collaborations between engineers, designers, clinicians, and scientists and translates them.

Before joining Aarhus University, Subburaj worked as an assistant professor and lead for the healthcare engineering track in the pillar of engineering product development at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Singapore. In parallel, he served as an adjunct faculty in the Centre for Innovation at the Changi General Hospital, where he developed and implemented a pathway for clinicians to work with students to develop engineering product design solutions for their clinical needs. Design thinking, engineering design, and medical device design are some courses he taught. He received the Outstanding Education Award - Excellence in Teaching from SUTD for his pedagogical contribution to design-based healthcare engineering education. He also received the Excellence in Translational Science Award from the Orthopaedic Research Society for his work on cartilage biomechanics.

His research resulted in 3 patents, over 65 peer-reviewed articles in refereed international clinical and technical journals, and 4 edited books. He received a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and a Master of Technology Entrepreneurship and Innovation from the Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Canada. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship in musculoskeletal biomechanics in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at the University of California, San Francisco.