Prof. Kar pursued higher studies at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India, and Iowa State University, USA, before joining as a Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Programme in Materials Science at IIT Kanpur in 2001. He was a BOYSCAST Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, in 2003. He is currently holding the Champa Devi Gangwal Chair Professor of the Institute. Before this, he also had the Umang Gupta Institute Chair Professor (2015-2018) at IIT Kanpur. He is the former Head of the Interdisciplinary Programme in Materials Science from 2011-2014, and Founding Chairman of the Indian Society for Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering Kanpur Chapter from 2006 to 2011.
Prof. Kar is an active researcher in the broad areas of nanostructured carbon materials, nanocomposites, functionally graded materials, nano-polymers, and smart materials for structural, energy, water, and biomedical appl
