Research Bio
Karthik Shekhar is a chemical engineer and computational biologist whose research is at the interface of neuroscience and biophysics. He is best known for developing single-cell transcriptomic methods to map cellular heterogeneity in complex tissues, including the brain and retina. Current projects are focused on two broad themes. One aims to discover the molecular underpinnings of the development and evolution of neural of neural circuits through an integration of single-cell genomics and computation. The other aims to understand the fundamental mechanisms that underpin the emergent dynamics of bioelectricity focused on diffuse charge dynamics and electromechanics at membrane interfaces, through a combination of theory and computation.
He is a Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UC Berkeley and a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. He is also affiliated with graduate groups in Computational Biology, Biophysics, and Vision Science. He has received multiple awards for teaching and his research.
Selected Awards:
- Faculty Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring, UC Berkeley (2025)
- Departmental Teaching Award, CBE, UC Berkeley (2022, 2023, 2025)
- Young Alumnus Achiever Award, IIT Bombay (2024)
- McKnight Scholar in Neuroscience (2023)
- Donald Sterling Noyce Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, UC Berkeley (2023)
- Scialog Fellow (Microbiome, Neurobiology and Disease) (2023)
- National Glaucoma Research Douglas H. Johnson Award (2023)
- Hellman Fellow (2022)
Research Expertise and Interest
computational biology and genomics, neuroscience, biophysics, soft matter
