Faculty Profiles

Dr. Alireza Mohammad Karim is an Assistant Professor of Instruction in Mechanical Engineering in the Ingram School of Engineering at Texas State University. His interdisciplinary scholarship is anchored in fluid mechanics and transport phenomena and extends across cardiovascular mechanobiology, mechanotransduction, interfacial and multiphase flows, complex fluids, microfluidics, nanoscience, biomaterials, therapeutic drug delivery, and multiscale biomedical engineering. A unifying theme of his research is understanding how fluid-dynamic and mechanical forces, from molecular and interfacial interactions to cellular and tissue-scale loading, govern biological function, material behavior, transport processes, and therapeutic performance. His research to date has combined theoretical, analytical, experimental, and analytical modeling approaches, with his current research expanding into computational modeling of cardiovascular mechanobiology and mechanically regulated biological systems.
Prior to joining Texas State University, Dr. Karim was an NHLBI T32 Postdoctoral Fellow and Rashkind Scholar in Pediatric Cardiology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). His research focused on cardiovascular mechanobiology, with particular emphasis on how mechanical stimuli arising from cardiovascular fluid-dynamic conditions regulate heart-valve cellular behavior, mechanotransductive signaling, and extracellular-matrix remodeling. This work investigated the biological consequences of mechanically relevant stimuli associated with the cardiovascular environment and integrated principles of fluid mechanics, biomechanics, mechanobiology, and molecular and cellular biology to examine the transmission and regulation of physical forces across biological scales.
Dr. Karim earned a Ph.D. in Engineering–Nanoscience from the University of Cambridge, where he conducted doctoral research under the supervision of Professor Sir Mark E. Welland. His research investigated the molecular self-assembly of therapeutic peptides through experimental characterization, theoretical analysis, and analytical modeling of nanofibril structure, kinetics, thermodynamics, and mechanical properties. This work established a quantitative framework for understanding self-assembled peptide nanostructures as biomaterial platforms for controlled and sustained therapeutic delivery and continues to inform his research at the interface of nanoscience, biomaterials, transport phenomena, and drug-delivery engineering.
Dr. Karim also earned a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), with a specialization in Fluid Mechanics and a minor in Applied Mathematics. His doctoral research addressed fundamental problems in interfacial and multiphase fluid mechanics, including dynamic wetting, moving contact-line phenomena, complex-fluid behavior, and fluid–solid interfacial dynamics. His work combined theoretical, analytical, experimental, and analytical modeling approaches to investigate the fundamental physics governing fluid interfaces and transport. This combined training in aerospace engineering, fluid mechanics, and applied mathematics established a rigorous physical and mathematical foundation for his subsequent research across complex fluids, transport phenomena, microfluidics, mechanobiology, and biomedical engineering.
Dr. Karim subsequently served as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, where he investigated the rheology, fluid mechanics, and hydrodynamic stability of complex-fluid coating flows using theoretical, analytical, experimental, and modeling approaches. This research contributed to the development of an innovative coating process adopted for industrial application and protected by U.S. Patent 11,369,988 (2022) and international patents. His broader research in complex-fluid mechanics has encompassed viscoelastic and non-Newtonian fluids, flow stability, droplet impact, dynamic interfaces, wettability, and transient interfacial phenomena, further establishing fluid mechanics as a central foundation of his interdisciplinary research program.
His interdisciplinary research experience also includes work as a Researcher in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) from 2009 to 2010, where he conducted a numerical study of the long-term and short-term variation of the atmospheric HDO/H₂O ratio. This work provided experience in the numerical analysis of complex physical systems and complemented his broader training in fluid mechanics, transport phenomena, applied mathematics, and quantitative modeling.
Dr. Karim earned an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Caltech, with specialization in Space Propulsion; an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA; and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA, summa cum laude. His multidisciplinary education spans mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, fluid mechanics, applied mathematics, space propulsion, and nanoscience, providing a broad physical and quantitative foundation for research across traditional disciplinary boundaries.
Collectively, Dr. Karim’s academic training and research experience across UCLA, Caltech, the University of Minnesota, the University of Cambridge, and CHOP have established a multidisciplinary research foundation centered on fluid mechanics and transport phenomena and extending into nanoscience, biomaterials, mechanobiology, and cardiovascular engineering. His research thus far has been grounded primarily in theoretical, analytical, experimental, and analytical modeling methodologies. Building upon this foundation, his ongoing research is advancing toward computational modeling of cardiovascular mechanobiology, with particular emphasis on understanding how different forms of mechanical stimulation arising from cardiovascular fluid-dynamic conditions—including flow-induced shear, pressure, deformation, and related mechanical loading—regulate cellular and molecular responses. This direction seeks to establish predictive multiscale frameworks connecting cardiovascular fluid dynamics and mechanical stimulation to mechanotransduction, cellular behavior, tissue remodeling, and disease progression, while also informing future microfluidic and organ-on-chip systems and fluid-mechanics-based approaches to biomedical engineering and therapeutic delivery.