Subra Suresh

Subra Suresh
Suresh in 2023
4th President of Nanyang Technological University
In office 1 January 2018 – December 2022
Preceded by	Bertil Andersson
Succeeded by	Teck-Hua Ho
9th President of Carnegie Mellon University
In office 1 July 2013 – 30 June 2017
Preceded by	Jared Cohon
Succeeded by	Farnam Jahanian
13th Director of the National Science Foundation
In office October 18, 2010 – March 31, 2013
President	Barack Obama
Preceded by	Arden L. Bement Jr.
Succeeded by	France A. Córdova
Personal details
Born	Subramanian Suresh Bombay, India
Education	Indian Institute of Technology Madras (BTech) Iowa State University (MS) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (ScD)
Scientific career
Fields	Materials science
Institutions	Brown University Massachusetts Institute of Technology National Science Foundation Carnegie Mellon University Nanyang Technological University
Thesis	Mechanisms of environmentally - influenced fatigue crack growth in lower strength steels (1981)
Doctoral advisor	Robert O. Ritchie
Doctoral students	Upadrasta Ramamurty

Subra Suresh is an Indian-born American engineer, materials scientist, and academic leader. He is currently Professor at Large at Brown University and Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and board member at the Villars Institute. He was Dean of the School of Engineering at MIT from 2007 to 2010 before being appointed as Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) by Barack Obama, where he served from 2010 to 2013. He was the president of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) from 2013 to 2017. Between 2018 and 2022, he was the fourth President of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU), where he was also the inaugural Distinguished University Professor.

Société Générale, one of Europe’s leading financial services groups, announced in February 2024 that Subra Suresh has been appointed Chairman of the Group’s Scientific Advisory Council.^[1]

Suresh was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering in 2002, to the National Academy of Sciences in 2012 and to the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) in 2013. He is one of a very small number of Americans to be elected to three branches of the U.S. National Academies, and the first and only university president to hold this distinction. He was the first Asian-born professor to lead any of the five schools at MIT and the first Asian-born scientist to lead the NSF.^[2]

Suresh was awarded the National Medal of Science, the highest honor accorded to a US scientist, by President Biden in a ceremony at the White House on 24 October 2023.