Shaping Minds and Joints: In Conversation with Prof. Darshan Shah

Background

Prof. Darshan Shah, an assistant professor specialising in biomechanics and musculoskeletal engineering from the Mechanical Department of IITB, embarked on his academic journey as a Mechanical Dual Degree student at IIT Bombay from 2007 to 2012. His initial venture into a project in thermal fluid engineering during his UG blossomed into a specific subdomain, driven by a special curiosity and a disregard for generalisations of fields.

He recalled his first corporate industrial experience as an intern at L&T in his 2nd year as a negative experience that redirected his ambitions towards pursuing academia. Fueled by a familial legacy in medicine, he developed a passion for anatomy. Prof. Darshan’s career trajectory shifted towards biomechanics following a pivotal experience witnessing his grandfather’s operation after a fracture during his undergrad. He dropped an Electrical Engineering minor midway and did a biomedical applications and manufacturing course instead.

Under the mentorship of Prof. Ravi at IITB, Prof. Darshan’s research trajectory flourished, yielding impactful contributions in biomedical research, including a conference paper, 2 journal publications, and a patent in collaboration with a Hiranandani surgeon. Since he did not get a funded PhD, he pursued another Masters (apart from his Dual Degree in Mechanical Engineering from IITB) from Imperial College London dedicated to the concepts of tissue engineering and neuromuscular control.

His enthusiasm for the field persisted through a MITACS internship at Simon Fraser University and a SemEx at NUS where he completed 7 courses and a project, exceeding the 4 course requirement. His international experience and exposure in Singapore taught him that people do not understand enough about the field of biomechanics in India. This persuaded him to publish in both engineering and medical journals to convince doctors that engineers could design devices and build software specific to medical applications.Even today, the professor considers his work to be more broad than deep because he applies principles from both the medical and engineering perspectives. 

After his PhD (also from Imperial College London), he pursued postdoctoral reseaerch in an orthopaedic lab in a university hospital. He pioneered cadaveric testing methodologies during his time at the orthopaedic lab basically implying testing on dead human joints to simulate real-life conditions. His work today involves building physical systems that mimic human anatomy (eg. rod as a replacement for femur, prosthetic limbs, etc.), comparing different medical conditions and quantifying biomechanics using frugal sensors. Overall, he enjoys the uniqueness of his field especially since he is the only one pursuing the field of biomechanical engineering in the institute.

Makerspace

Apart from his research endeavours, Prof. Darshan Shah has also played a pivotal role as a core committee member of the Makerspace initiative at IIT Bombay since 2021. Emphasising a hands-on approach over traditional theoretical learning, MakerSpace envisioned a space where students could explore and innovate freely in a hands-on lab course, a departure from the constraints often imposed by conventional lab courses.

Usually, freshers explore hands-on engineering only through informal, voluntary methods like Tech GCs, tech club events and tech teams. The initial idea to formalise Makerspace as a course stemmed from a desire to promote access to cutting-edge facilities, aligning with the ethos that engineers thrive best when engaged in practical, experiential learning. This ensures students are incentivized to work on a project of their own choice instead of being directed by others to work on something they are not interested in. Makerspace now is an independent interdisciplinary centre and Prof. Darshan continues to contribute to other such interdisciplinary initiatives throughout the institute.

Microfactories

Prof. Darshan is also the faculty-in-charge of Microfactories located in the H7 area due to his involvement in Makerspace. Prof. Darshan stated, “The objective of this project is to transform the educational experience of students by enabling hands-on learning with the help of advanced facilities akin to those found in real-world industrial setups. The microfactories are equipped with 3D printers, laser cutters, forming machines, electronic lathes, and the latest modelling software to enhance their research.” He confesses that the Tinkerer’s Laboratory has its own set of advantages by being open 24 x 7 to all students. Microfactory labs however have an added advantage of specialised equipment having minimal downtime and expert staff available to help with personal projects. In short, Microfactory labs are simply a “more serious Tinkerer’s Lab”.

Inaugurated in August 2022, the Microfactory lab was the beginning of the Makerspace project that required a lot of introspection and monitoring. They have also set up a hierarchical training system in the lab. The committee urged professors to direct their students to the lab to identify any obstacles future enthusiastic students might face in pursuing their chosen projects due to equipment shortages. Simultaneously, the Committee was constantly in touch with Tinkerer’s Lab managers to know the pros and cons of a student-run lab, its managerial structure, etc. The culture in the Microfactories lab emphasized greater flexibility compared to conventional research labs, encouraging students to be creative while also establishing ground rules to protect the equipment from damage. Prof. Shah continues to be involved in expanding Makerspace labs which will have its new home in the Desai Sethi School of Entrepreneurship building.

Koita Centre for Digital Health (KCDH)

Prof. Darshan is also an associate faculty member at KCDH, IIT Bombay, and brings a unique blend of expertise in biomechanics and computational aspects to his role. His involvement is driven not by a pursuit of positions but by a passion for expanding the outreach of interdisciplinary work. In his view, KCDH and similar interdisciplinary centres emerging on campus represent a pivotal shift toward integrating diverse fields of study. As the institute revamps its curriculum to foster interdisciplinary learning, Prof. Darshan sees these initiatives as crucial steps in staying relevant as a top engineering institute.

As part of his work on Digital Health in fields such as telerehabilitation and remote monitoring, he has successfully collaborated with the Imperial College of Engineering and received the prestigious Imperial-India Connect Fund to foster Remote Biomechanics research in both institutions. He has also collaborated with an Indian startup called Digital Darwin for projects in the field.

Thoughts on Teaching and Education

From the perspective of most IITB students, the subject of this article is, after all, a professor. Everyone who has been taught by him in the Solid Mechanics course or a Mechanical Engineering lab will readily attest to the fact that his teaching style is unique. He often emphasises the philosophical and research aspects of the course apart from its actual content. He believes that being an undergrad is still a lot about exploring. So he perseveres to expose people to as broad an experience as possible, including guest lectures, hands-on sessions, projects and hard skills in his courses. He does this to ensure people inculcate a passion for research, not specifically commercially focused but something that is of utility to the end user. He firmly believes, “Exams are not my primary focus, I believe projects are more important to maximize hands-on learning of the course and learning real-life problem-solving.”

His focus on accessibility is observed in the way he conducted ME6114 (Joint Biomechanics) allowing students from 10 departments from 3rd year UGs to Final year PhDs to take it up. A practitioner of his philosophical beliefs, he concluded the ME6114 course with an international conference called BiOMEx’24 where all course registrants presented their course project in an exhibition in front of 300 people including international guests.

Regarding his daily coursework, his classes are meant to be interactive; a conversation where every student learns from everyone else. He told us that for core courses, he always attempts to introduce relevant real-life problems involving problem formulation, something we would consider different as most of the focus is usually on solving. He incentivizes attendance in his courses and insists that if his students attend every lecture, they are likely to be automatically prepared for exams. 

Reflecting on the challenges faced by the senior professors leading these reforms such as resistance to commissioning new labs and introducing additional interdisciplinary ones, Prof. Darshan acknowledges the necessity of maintaining a strong foundation in basic materials amidst the push towards interdisciplinary education. He emphasizes the importance of equipping students with a strong foundation in each field even when students would prefer to skip the “old stuff” and call it redundant and the market shifts more towards AI applications away from traditional core fields. He mentions that even seemingly “old” subjects like trigonometry remain indispensable in practical fields such as orthopaedic surgery.

While recognizing the dynamic nature of the market—constantly evolving from microprocessors to IT and finance — he advocates for an educational approach that balances depth with breadth and the freedom to choose. He believes in catering to both generalists and specialists, ensuring that students are equipped not only with specialized knowledge but also with the ability to navigate changing professional landscapes.

He confesses that managing so many duties together is no easy task, especially as a relatively new faculty member still finding his equilibrium. He mentioned on multi-tasking, “I end up allocating 120% of my time to teaching, 40% to research and whatever remains to serve the institute in managerial and administrative positions like Makerspace.” His approach to handling these duties is thinking from a student’s experience perspective but 2 steps ahead of the curve. He does not feel like drawing a line between his research, teaching and administrative duties because he is incredibly passionate about those responsibilities. So even when these voluntarily taken duties get “super exhausting” as he says it he finds the end result “super rewarding”. Given all this, he understands that research is the most important to him from a career perspective to establish himself.

Message for the students

As an alum-turned-professor, Prof. Darshan Shah has some very firm, well-informed opinions about the ideal student life at IIT Bombay to extract maximum benefit from the time you spend on campus. 

1. He urges students not to take advice from seniors one year older than them. They are not experienced enough and can bring in biases younger students are unlikely to question. It is much preferred to get perspectives from more experienced people who’ve been further down the road.
2. There is a big misconception of there not being much scope in acads. Students tend to stay inside a PoR bubble, unable to comprehend life beyond it. He wants students to understand that acads can be enjoyable if done right and has tons of real-life applications. He firmly believes that engineering is a perspective of the human thought process and implores students to explore it fully before making assumptions about it and jumping to other perspectives. He analogizes this to movies; just like we watch a film and experience it on our own rather than reading the whole plot and skipping to the next one, we must not skip or find shortcuts in our engineering education.
3. The last thing he professes is that most faculty really put humongous efforts into their courses and genuinely incorporate student feedback to incrementally improve course quality. However, their job becomes difficult because students are not interested in courses. This often leads to some faculty becoming indifferent and demotivated about teaching their courses. All in all, students simply showing up to class means a lot to professors and 100% attendance is the greatest feedback a professor can receive.
4. Especially for undergraduates, students must make sure they spend your 4-5 years in IIT to truly “find themselves”. Be it in academics or extracurriculars or even a blend of all these things, students must truly understand what they like. At the end of their very short insti life, everything will be a grey basket. They must understand to sort things into black and white and learn even through negative experiences. He quoted his internship experience and said it was essential to understand his preferences. Hence, the focus should be on exploring the plethora of things insti has to offer.

Editorial Credits: Gaurav Awasthi, Gautam Khona, Spruha Sarnaik