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In Memoriam: Professor K. R. Rajagopal

The academic community at Charles University and beyond is deeply saddened by the passing of Professor K. R. Rajagopal, who died on March 20, 2025.

K. R. Rajagopal (second from the right) with Rector Václav Hampl, when he was awarded an honorary degree from Charles University in 2012.

As a young man, K.R. Rajagopal studied mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology. He received his Master's degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology and his PhD from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 1978. Throughout his career, he worked at the University of Michigan, Catholic University of America, and the University of Pittsburgh.

He was a Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University, where he held the Forsyth Chair in Mechanical Engineering. Additionally, he held joint appointments in the Departments of Mathematics, Biomedical Engineering, and Civil Engineering, and was a Senior Research Scientist at the Texas Transportation Institute.

Professor Rajagopal served as the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Engineering Science and was awarded the Eringen Medal by the Society of Engineering Science, the Archie Higdon Medal by ASEE, and numerous other honours. He published hundreds of scientific papers in the fields of continuum mechanics and thermodynamics and authored several books on mechanics.

At Charles University, Professor Rajagopal mentored many students and collaborated with several senior researchers at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics. He received an honorary doctorate from the university on 4 April 2012, during the tenure of Rector Václav Hampl.