Faculty Profile for Dr. Jitendra Tate

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Dr. Tate is a mechanical engineer by training. He earned BS and MS degrees in Mechanical engineering from the University of Pune, India, in 1990 and 1996, respectively. He has nine years of teaching experience in India before joining Ph.D. program in the USA in 2000. He obtained Ph.D. degree in Mechanical engineering specializing in Mechanics and Materials from NC A&T SU in 2004. After one year of a Research Associate position at NC A&T SU, Dr. Tate joined Texas State in the fall of 2005. He has 25-plus years of academic and two years of industry experience. He has provided consultation to many private companies and has numerous funding from federal and private entities. He is well known for his expertise in advanced composite materials and nanotechnology safety.

Dr. Tate is a recipient of a prestigious national teaching award, The Educator of the Year 2020 and 2009, by the ‘Society of Plastics Engineers’ Composites Division.

At Texas State, he received the Presidential Distinction Award for Excellence in Service in 2020, Presidential Distinction Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2018, and College Achievement Awards for Excellence in Teaching in 2019 and 2009.

Dr. Tate is a member of AIAA, ASME, ACMA, SPE, and SAMPE. He is a faculty advisor of the SAMPE Student Chapter and serves as a member of the Board of Directors at SAMPE North America. He served as Technical Chair of CAMX 2020 International Conference and Technical co-Chair of the SAMPE 2021 International Conference.

Teaching Interests

Polymers Properties and Processing, Composite Materials, Materials engineering, Polymer Nanocomposites, Design of Machine Elements, and Mechanics of Materials.

Research Interests

Dr. Jitendra S. Tate, professor of manufacturing engineering at Texas State University, has established safe handling practices for industrial (such as nanoclay) and engineered (such as carbon nanotubes) nanoparticles in his research and teaching, dealing with advanced polymer nanocomposites. His research areas include developing, manufacturing, and characterizing the high-performance polymeric thermoplastics and thermoset nanocomposites for Thermal Protection Systems (TPS), rocket ablatives, fire-retardant interior structures of mass transit and aircraft, lighter and damage-tolerant wind turbine blades, fiber-reinforced high-temperature composites, replacement of traditional composites using bio-based materials, sustainable composites from renewable resources, cellulose nanofibers, conductive/magnetic/high-temperature polymers for 3D printing, nanotechnology education, and nanotechnology safety.

He served as Principal Investigator of NSF-NUE grant 'NanoTRA-Texas Regional Alliance to Foster Nanotechnology Environment, Health, and Safety Awareness in Tomorrow’s Engineering and Technology Leaders', 2013-15. He served as Principal Investigator of a prestigious NASA STTR Phase I project on high-temperature materials.

Dr. Tate has acquired $632k in external funding as Principal Investigator and another $1.58M as co-Principal Investigator and Senior Collaborator. His external funding is from NSF, NASA, Jacobs Engineering, Evonik Corporation, KAI LLC, and Applied Nanotech.

Dr. Tate has 119 peer-reviewed articles published, of which 36 were journal articles and 83 full-length peer-reviewed conference papers. He has presented his research at 50-plus conference presentations. he has edited one book and written four book chapters.

He has been a major supervisor on 1 Ph.D. dissertation and 16 theses. He is currently supervising 1 Ph.D. and 4 MS students. He has served on numerous theses' committees.