Dr. Arepalli was the Vice President of Graduate Education at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), Hampton, VA and coordinated a multi-University consortium for NASA Langley. From 2009 to 2013, he was a Professor under the World Class University program in the Department of Energy Science at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) in Suwon, South Korea. He was the Chief Scientist of the Applied Nanotechnology Program and Reentry Plasma Diagnostics Program at NASA-Johnson Space Center and worked for 22 years before moving to Korea in 2009.
Dr. Arepalli received his Ph.D. in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur in 1979. He finished postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University and the University of Illinois at Chicago prior to joining Lockheed Martin at Houston in 1987. His activities were focused on laser-based flow diagnostics, aerothermodynamics, and nanomaterials. He was responsible for the NASA-Rice workshops on carbon nanotube growth and NASA-NIST workshops on nanotube measurements. He was part of the ISO team in establishing standards for carbon nanotubes.
Dr. Arepalli is an Associate Fellow of AIAA and is nominated as a Fellow of APS. He is a member of AIAA National Technical Committee on Terrestrial Energy. He was on the AIAA National Technical Committee on Aerodynamic Measurement Technology from 1994-2001. He was the recipient of the “Chairman's Award for 1998” from G. B. Tech., Inc. and “President’s Award for 2005”, from Jacobs Technology for his support of NASA-JSC. In 2007, he received “Rotary National Space Achievement Award” for the accomplishments of the Carbon Nanotube Team. He received the “Nanocarbon 2008 Award” from the Carbon Society of Japan in 2008. He conducted several Nanotechnology-based workshops and conferences.
Dr. Arepalli is a founding Board Member of Science National Honor Society. He volunteered as science fair judge since 1988 and was the science fair coordinator for American Physical Society, Jacobs Technology and Lockheed Martin at the Science and Engineering Fair of Houston during 1994 to 2009. He enjoys interacting with students and giving Nanotechnology focused talks.