Dr Sathish Kumar
Marimuthu

Patient-specific biomechanics for surgical planning

I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Glasgow, working with Sean McGinty in the James Watt School of Engineering and Nicholas Hill in the School of Mathematics & Statistics. My research develops computational models to support cardiovascular and neurosurgical planning, investigate immediate and long-term intervention outcomes, and improve implant design.

I study surgery-induced deformation, vascular adaptation, growth and remodelling, and the mechanical response of biological tissues. My current work combines coronary intervention research within the EPSRC Centre for Future PCI Planning with aortic modelling and knowledge-exchange projects with Terumo Aortic.

During my EPSRC- and Terumo Aortic-funded industrial PhD at the SofTMech Centre (2020–2024), I developed patient-specific computational tools for endovascular aortic repair, stent-graft deployment and device–vessel interaction, collaborating with Francesco Migliavacca and Giulia Luraghi at Politecnico di Milano.

Earlier work at IIT Madras combined fluid–structure interaction during craniotomy with a virtual reality platform for LVAD implantation planning and post-operative assessment, in collaboration with R. Krishnakumar and cardiothoracic surgeon K. R. Balakrishnan.

My long-term goal is to integrate patient-specific mechanical modelling with virtual and augmented reality to develop predictive surgical planning and navigation tools for cardiovascular and neurological interventions.

2025–2029

Postdoctoral Research Associate

James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, UK. EPSRC Centre for Future PCI Planning, alongside continuing aortic modelling and knowledge-exchange collaboration with Terumo Aortic.

2025–2028

Visiting Researcher

Department of Clinical Medicine — Department of Cardiological Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark.

2025–2028

Visiting Researcher

PoliToBIOMed Lab, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS), Politecnico di Torino, Italy.

Research themes

I am also interested in incorporating drug-eluting stents into biomechanical models to investigate relationships between local drug delivery, vascular mechanics and neo-intimal growth.

Funding & awards

Research funding & fellowships

• £50,000 · Principal Investigator
  Glasgow Knowledge Exchange Fund (GKEF) and Terumo Aortic, 2026–2027.
• £71,939 · Co-Investigator
  EPSRC Impact Acceleration Accounts (IAA) & Terumo Aortic grant, 2025–2026.
• Doctoral Researcher
  EPSRC SofTMech and Terumo Aortic PhD studentship, 2020–2024. Grant EP/S030875/1.
• Half-Time Research Assistant Fellowship (HTRA), IIT Madras, 2017–2020.
• Project Supervisor
  EPSRC Vacation Internship: paid undergraduate summer internship, July–September 2026.

Awards & recognition

• Third Prize, Poster Presentation, Soft Tissue Modelling Workshop, 8 June 2023 — design of patient-specific stent-grafts to treat aortic diseases.
• DST-INSPIRE Internship for Young Scientists, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India; Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, 3–8 January 2011.

Publications, conferences & invited talks

Journal publications

2026

Deep Gaussian processes and multivariate Bayesian spline-based methods for emulating nonlinear cardiovascular systems

Macaulay C, Husmeier D, Davies V, Marimuthu SK, Colebank M.

Journal of Machine Intelligence and Data Science, 7:09–21.

DOI: 10.11159/jmids.2026.002

2025

A three-dimensional computational study of critical pressures of dissection propagation in the aorta

Marimuthu SK, Luraghi G, Maclean C, Brodie R, Migliavacca F, McGinty S, et al.

Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology, 24:1767–1780.

DOI: 10.1007/s10237-025-01991-2

2021

Virtual reality-guided left ventricular assist device implantation in pediatric patient: Valuable presurgical tool

Ramaswamy RK, Marimuthu SK, Ramarathnam KK, Vijayasekharan S, Rao KGS, Balakrishnan KR.

Annals of Pediatric Cardiology, 14(3):388–392.

DOI: 10.4103/apc.apc_81_21

Conference presentations & published abstracts

2026

Modelling stent-induced remodelling in aneurysmal aortas using homogenized constrained mixture theory

Marimuthu SK, Geelkerken R, Brodie R, Maclean C, McGinty S, Hill NA. VPH 2026, Milan, Italy, 1–4 September.

2025

Finite element modelling of stent-induced growth and remodelling in aneurysmal and dissected aortas using stress dependent (localised) kinematic growth model

Marimuthu SK, McGinty S, Hill NA. BioMedEng25, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, 4–5 September.

2025

Modelling post EVAR vascular adaptations (G&R) and validation using a simple linear (global) kinematic growth model

Marimuthu SK, McGinty S, Hill NA. 7th Soft Tissue workshop, Politecnico di Milano, Italy, 11-13 June.

2023

Design of patient-specific stent-grafts to treat aortic diseases.

Marimuthu SK, McGinty S, Hill NA. 6th Soft Tissue workshop, University of Glasgow, UK, 8 June.

2022

Effect of tapered stent-graft on maximum stress concentration and the reduction in the risk of distal stent-induced new entry (d-SINE) tears

Marimuthu SK, McGinty S, Hill NA. World Congress of Biomechanics, Taipei, Taiwan, 13 July.

2022

Numerical simulation of dissection propagation in three-dimensional patient-specific aortas

Marimuthu SK, McGinty S, Hill NA. World Congress of Biomechanics, Taipei, Taiwan, 12 July.

2022

A methodology to investigate aortic dissection propagation in a three-dimensional aorta

McGinty S, Marimuthu SK, Hill NA. European Solid Mechanics Conference, Galway, Ireland, 5 July.

2021

Understanding the stent-induced stresses in patient-specific aortas modelled with an anisotropic hyperelastic constitutive model

Marimuthu SK, McGinty S, Hill NA. BMC-BAMC, Glasgow, UK, 8 April. Online poster presentation.

2020

Use of Virtual Reality as a Presurgical Planning Tool in LVAD Implantation

Sathishkumar M, Krishnakumar R, Balakrishnan K. 66th ASAIO Annual Meeting, June. ASAIO Journal, 66(Supplement 2), p. 31, CAR11.

Invited talks & seminars

• IAA-INI-HIMR Workshop, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 2–3 March 2026 — invited talk.
• Continuum Mechanics & Industrial Mathematics Group, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 26 November 2025 — invited seminar.
• 2nd Terumo Aortic Academic Collaboration Conference, University of Strathclyde, 18 September 2025 — simulation framework for stent deployment and post-surgical vascular remodelling in aortic dissection and aneurysm.
• 1st Terumo Aortic Academic Collaboration Conference, University of Strathclyde, 6 June 2023 — optimisation of stent-graft designs to reduce post-surgery complications in aortic dissection treatment.

Clinical, academic & industry partnerships

My collaborations connect computational biomechanics, medical-device development and clinical imaging.

Ongoing collaborations

Terumo Aortic (Vascutek Ltd), UK

Patient-specific modelling of aortic devices and vascular adaptation after TEVAR, EVAR and FEVAR. This partnership builds on my industrial PhD and includes knowledge-exchange research on endovascular treatment of aortic aneurysms and dissections.

Collaborators: Dr Robbie Brodie and Dr Craig Maclean.

Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark

Calibration and validation of computational models of tissue damage, balloon angioplasty, stent deployment and haemodynamics using clinical data from the OCTOBER and OCTAVE trials.

Collaborators: Dr Emil Nielsen Holck, Dr Lene Andreasen and Prof. Evald Høj Christiansen.

University of Oxford, UK

Reconstruction of three-dimensional coronary lumen geometries and centrelines from two X-ray angiography projections to support patient-specific modelling.

Collaborators: Dr Abhirup Banerjee, Prof. Vicente Grau and Prof. Robin Choudhury.

Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Patient-specific coronary geometry reconstruction using OCT and X-ray angiography, and computational modelling of stent–vessel interaction. This work forms part of my visiting research at PoliToBIOMed Lab.

Collaborators: Prof. Claudio Chiastra and Dr Dario Carbonaro.

Medisch Spectrum Twente & University of Twente, the Netherlands

Calibration and validation of models of stent-graft–aorta interaction and vascular adaptation using longitudinal clinical data following EVAR. The collaboration also supports the development of statistical emulators and methods for inferring model parameters.

The partnership brings together Medisch Spectrum Twente and the University of Twente’s Multi-Modality Medical Imaging (M3I) group, within the Faculty of Science and Technology and Technical Medical Centre.

Collaborators: Prof. Robert H. Geelkerken and Dr Maaike Koenrades.

Previous collaborations

Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Computational modelling of aortic devices and device–vessel interaction during my industrial PhD.

Collaborators: Prof. Francesco Migliavacca and Prof. Giulia Luraghi.

MGM Healthcare, Chennai, India

Development of a virtual reality platform for LVAD implantation planning and post-operative assessment, in collaboration with the cardiothoracic clinical team.

Collaborator: Dr K. R. Balakrishnan.

Education & training

• Industrial PhD, Applied Mathematics · April 2024
  University of Glasgow & TerumoAortic Ltd.
  Thesis: “Optimisation of stent devices to treat dissected aorta.”
  Supervisors: Nicholas A Hill and Sean McGinty. Industry supervisors: Robbie Brodie and Craig Maclean. Collaborators: Francesco Migliavacca and Giulia Luraghi.
• MS, Engineering Design · July 2020
  Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras.
  Thesis: “Mechanistic modelling and virtual reality in improving the outcome of surgeries.”
  Supervisor: R. Krishnakumar. Collaborator: K. R. Balakrishnan.
• BEng, Mechanical Engineering · May 2016
  Anna University, India.

Summer schools

• Biomechanics of Soft Tissues: From the Heart to the Cardiovascular System to the Brain
  Technical University of Graz, Austria, 11–15 September 2023. Continuum mechanics, nonlinear elasticity, image-based modelling, vascular adaptation and parameter identification.
• Computational Tissue Biomechanics: From in-vitro experiment to damage and failure analysis
  KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, 5–9 September 2023. Included biaxial tensile testing of porcine aorta for material parameter estimation and curve fitting.

Research supervision

EPSRC Paid Summer Vacation Internship · July–September 2026
Emma Fraser, BSc (Hons) Physics, University of Glasgow, UK.

Summer Internship · July–September 2026
Neel S Bongale, MBChB Undergraduate Medicine Program, University of Edinburgh, UK.

Teaching contributions

University of Glasgow

Teaching contribution (lectures) · November 2025
James Watt School of Engineering — Engineering Mathematics 1 (ENG1063). Delivered first-year undergraduate lectures on matrix algebra, sequences, series and limits.

Teaching Assistant & Demonstrator · May 2022–August 2024

• Mechanics of Solids 3 and 4: solid mechanics teaching and ABAQUS simulations of elastic and plastic behaviour.
• Finite Element Analysis lab: plate-with-a-hole simulations and three-dimensional analysis of a bearing bracket.
• Design and Manufacture 2; Materials 1 & 2: tensile and impact testing, heat treatment, annealing and material behaviour in steels, copper and polymers.
• Engineering Skills 1 (Mechanical): miniature trebuchet projects using laser-cut materials.

Marker · May 2022–August 2024
School of Mathematics and Statistics & James Watt School of Engineering. Mathematics 1C (Introduction to Calculus), Mathematics 2B (Linear Algebra), Mathematics 2E (Mechanics), Engineering Mathematics 1, Finite Element Analysis and Mechanics of Solids 3.

Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Teaching Assistant · 2017–2020
Department of Engineering Design: Computational Methods in Design and Design of Implantable Devices.

Professional service

Representative roles at the University of Glasgow:

• ECR Representative (Present), Centre for Mathematics Applied to the Life Sciences (CMALS).
• Student Representative (2022), Applied Mathematics, School of Mathematics and Statistics.
• Student Representative (2022), Graduate School, College of Science and Engineering.

Research, exchange & public engagement

Methods, software & tools

Research & collaboration enquiries

SathishKumar.Marimuthu@glasgow.ac.uk

Pearce Lodge
University Avenue, Glasgow, Scotland, G12 8QQ, United Kingdom