Mahesh K. Mahanthappa received his B.A. degrees in Chemistry & Mathematics at the University of Colorado in 1997, where he did undergraduate research with Prof. G. T Yee. He completed his Ph.D. in organometallic chemistry as a Hertz Fellow with Professor R. M. Waymouth at Stanford University in 2003. After postdoctoral studies with Professors F. S. Bates and M. A. Hillmyer from 2003–2006, he joined the Chemistry faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2006. In 2015, Mahesh moved to the Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. He was promoted to Full Professor in 2019 and is the currently the H. Ted. Davis Faculty Scholar.

The Mahanthappa group leverages chemical synthesis and materials characterization to identify new methods for manipulating block copolymer and lyotropic liquid crystal self-assembly into unique morphologies with unusual bulk properties. He has received an NSF CAREER Award, a 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, the Emil H. Steiger Distinguished Teaching Award at UW-Madison, and the 2013 American Physical Society Dillon Medal in Polymer Physics, and he was named a 2015 Kavli Foundation Fellow. In 2020, he also received the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Health and Safety Graduate Research Faculty Safety Award and was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society.