Ashutosh Richhariya

Dr Ashutosh Richhariya is a scientist and heads the Engineering Translational Research group at L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI). Having been diagnosed with a complicated eye disease, he came to LVPEI as a patient and underwent many surgeries and transplants. Based on his experiences, he wanted to ensure no one else undergoes the same trouble of surgical complications. Hence, Ashutosh became keen to evaluate the surgery as an engineering process and finally using engineering knowledge wanted to find methods of improving it.

He started his PhD on the optical quality of the cornea under stress and hypothesized that, the topography and the optical quality of the cornea is due to the stresses in the suture, mechanical anisotropy in the cornea and the stress induced birefringence. As a result of his work he received the Nehru-Fulbright Scholarship, and was placed at The Ohio State University and The University of Rochester for further research. His area of expertise is Corneal Biomechanics, Finite Element Modeling and Optical Instrumentation.

His work at LVP focuses on use of engineering knowledge in medicine and health, and has helped in setting up an ecosystem of core research development for medical devices in India. He heads the Engineering group-Srujana Centre for Innovation, and his lab has capability for designing, simulation, testing and prototyping, and today is amongst the few eye care centers in world who have this capacity. He also heads the incubation/ start up efforts at LVPEI.