Vikas's primary research interests are physical and mechanical metallurgy and materials characterization with special interest in transmission electron microscopy (TEM). He aims to understand the influence of thermal treatments on microstructure and mechanical properties in Ti-5111 alloy in his current research. In order to facilitate this work, he is populating a database consisting of microstructural features and corresponding tensile properties. This database would be used to develop statistics based Bayesian Neural Networks models. In absence of constitutive equations of strengthening mechanisms in Ti alloys, these models provide a short term predictive capability of tensile behavior and also help to identify important microstructural features that govern the properties of interest.
Vikas is also attempting to understand the influence of oxygen in Ti-6Al-4V alloy. Oxygen is an α phase stabilizer and also interacts with other elements. By using advanced characterization tools such as electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), he hopes to explore its influence on various microstructural features such as alltriomorphic alpha.

Vikas Dixit earned his Bachelors degree in Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering from The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur (http://www.iitk.ac.in). Subsequently, he worked for TATA Steel for close to 2.5 years. He graduated with M.S. degree in Materials Science and Engineering from University of Missouri – Rolla (now renamed as Missouri University of Science and Technology). His Masters thesis was aimed at experimentally exploring microstructural evolution and tensile properties in friction stir welded Al-2024 alloy. At present, he is pursuing his doctoral studies under the guidance of Prof. Hamish L. Fraser.

• V. Dixit, R. S. Mishra, R. J. Lederich and R. Talwar, “Influence of process parameters on microstructural evolution and mechanical properties in friction stirred Al-2024 alloy”: The Science and technology of welding and joining 14-4 May (2009) , 346-355.
• V. Dixit, R. S. Mishra, R. J. Lederich and R. Talwar, “Effect of initial temper on the mechanical properties of friction stir welded Al-2024 alloy”: The Science and technology of welding and joining 12-4 (2007), 334-340.
• Hüseyin Göksu, Paul Pigg and Vikas Dixit, “Music composition using genetic algorithm (GA) and multilayer perceptrons (MLP)”, Lecture notes in Computer Science 8 (2005).

• V. Dixit, J. M. Sosa, P. C. Collins, H. L. Fraser, “Microstructural evolution and tensile behavior in Ti-5111 alloy”: TMS, Seattle (WA) February 2010.
• V. Dixit, J. M. Sosa, S. Koduri, P. C. Collins, H. L. Fraser, “Two and Three-Dimensional Characterization of α/β-Ti alloys”: MS&T, Pittsburgh (PA) October 2009.
• V. Dixit, P. C. Collins, H. L. Fraser, “Direct three-dimensional microstructural characterization of Ti-5111 alloy”: MS&T, Pittsburgh (PA) October 2009.
• V. Dixit, R. S. Mishra, R. J. Lederich, R. Talwar, “Correlations among process-parameters, microstructure and mechanical properties in friction stir welded 2024 aluminum alloy”: MS&T, Pittsburgh (PA) September 2005.

Vikas and his wife Manisha (also a Fraser group member) are blessed with a lovely daughter, Aashi. In his free time, he loves to spend time with his family. He also greatly enjoys playing Racquetball, Badminton, Tennis and Cricket.