opportunities

I will be joining the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) as an Assistant Professor starting in July 2026.

At NUS, my group will focus on theoretical and computational geo and granular materials, with emphasis on multi-physics and multi-phase problems, large deformation analysis, constitutive theory and rheology, and high-performance computing. The lab’s core motivation will be inspired by the late Professor Jim Mitchell’s (my doctoral grandfather) spirit of understanding why soil behaves the way it does.

South East Asia hosts a remarkable diversity of challenging geomaterials, including peat soils with high compressibility and organic content, expansive clays with strong hydromechanical coupling, and calcareous sands with crushable or cemented grain structures. The region also faces tremendous challenges related to earthquakes, volcanic activity, and intense rainfall and drought, which make geomechanical analysis substantially more complex. These materials and conditions often fall outside classical soil behavior frameworks, and I hope our group can contribute to advancing both fundamental understanding and numerical prediction technology. Applications will range from surficial geotechnical engineering to subsurface processes and extraterrestrial soil modeling.

I am currently recruiting multiple PhD students and/or postdoctoral researchers starting in Fall 2026 with full scholarships and stipends. The deadline for the August intake is January 15. Interested candidates may contact me at bchandra(at)berkeley(dot)edu with a detailed CV, transcripts, and a short research statement. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.