IIT Madras Post-Doctoral Researcher Mechanical 2026

IIT Madras Post-Doctoral Researcher Recruitment 2026: Overview

The Office of Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (IC&SR) at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is hiring a Post-Doctoral Researcher in Mechanical Engineering at its Chennai campus under advertisement ICSR/PR/Advt.197/2026. The position sits inside a sponsored research project run with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), where the team is building real-time diagnostics and prognostics for machines that are actually running on the shop floor.

The work is coordinated by Dr. Piyush Shakya of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. It suits someone who already works in machine vibration or stochastic signal processing and wants to take that skill into an industrial setting — the role includes travel to the industrial partner’s site for software and interface integration. This is a focused project engagement rather than a long career post, so treat it as research experience in an industry-facing lab.

Service Conditions and Caveats

• Contract term: The engagement starts as a three-month contract and can be extended in three-month or six-month steps up to a total of fifteen months, depending on how you perform. Finishing the contract gives you no claim to an extension, regularisation or a permanent post at the institute.
• Industry collaboration: The project runs jointly with HAL, and working closely with the partner on software and interface integration — including visits to their site — is part of the role, not an occasional extra.
• Provisional consideration: Being called to any stage of the selection is provisional. A registration certificate or call letter does not mean IIT Madras has accepted that you meet the conditions.
• Qualification floor: The stated qualification is the minimum. Holding a higher degree does not by itself earn you a call, and only relevant experience gained after the qualifying degree counts.
• Relaxation is discretionary: The institute can relax the minimum qualification or experience for exceptionally outstanding candidates, and can relax the experience requirement for SC/ST candidates when enough experienced candidates from those communities are not likely to be available.
• Shortlisting discretion: IIT Madras may cut the field down to a workable number using qualification, level and relevance of experience and other academic achievements, and it may reject any or all applications without giving reasons.
• Nationality: You must be an Indian citizen. People who migrated from Pakistan intending to settle permanently in India, and subjects of Nepal, are also eligible, but they need an eligibility certificate from the Government of India through the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• Existing project staff: If you already work on a project at IIT Madras, apply through proper channel or carry a No Objection Certificate. Without the NOC you will not be allowed to attend the test or interview.
• Truth of your claims: Shortlisting runs on what you enter in the online form. False information means rejection, and fake or suppressed records found later can end your service.
• Institute decisions: IC&SR decides the mode of screening and testing, can leave the position unfilled without giving a reason, and can modify, withdraw or cancel a communication if a mistake in the process comes to light — even after an appointment letter has gone out.
• Correspondence: Only shortlisted applicants are contacted, and the institute does not answer queries about the conduct or result of the test or interview. Canvassing in any form is a disqualification.
• Participation: IIT Madras says it wants a workforce that reflects gender balance and encourages women to apply.
• Updates: Any corrigendum or clarification is put up on the recruitment website and no separate message is sent, so keep checking the advertisement page while your application is live.

Application Submission Notes

Applications go through the IC&SR careers portal only. Check that Advt.197/2026 is the advertisement shown before you submit, and register with an email address you actually use, because every later message from the institute arrives there. The system accepts only one application per registered login against an advertisement, so if you want more than one IC&SR position, pick them all in the same submission.

Once you submit, the form cannot be edited or reverted, and a second application for the same post can get your candidature rejected. Keep a printout of the submitted form for the test, interview or document verification — the institute does not want the hard copy posted to it. For trouble with the form itself, IC&SR lists icsrrecruitment6@icsrpis.iitm.ac.in and icsrrecruitment@icsrpis.iitm.ac.in and the number 044-2257 8843 on working days between 9.00 AM and 5.30 PM, and it handles technical issues only.

• Develop a graphical user interface that ingests, processes, analyses and visualises the data the project collects.
• Acquire current, speed, vibration, temperature, noise and other real-time signals from machines while they are running.
• Apply stochastic signal processing to those readings across time, frequency and time-frequency domains.
• Build and train machine learning models for fault detection, fault classification and remaining useful life prediction.
• Work with the industrial partner HAL on software and interface integration, including travel to their site.
• Prepare technical reports, research reports and project documents for the research and technical activities.