1993 - B.Tech - Computer Science Professor, Department of Computer Science, @ Massachussetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Dr. Hari Balakrishnan obtained his B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Madras in 1993, and went on to do his M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science at University of California, Berkeley. His Ph.D. thesis on reliable data transport over wireless networks won the ACM doctoral dissertation award for best thesis in Computer Science in 1998.
Dr. Balakrishnan joined the EECS faculty at MIT in 1998, received tenure in 2003, and was promoted to a full professorship in 2006. He has been a leading researcher and educator in Computer Science for more than a decade now, and has made important contributions to communication networks and networked computer systems. His research has pioneered new areas of study in the field, and has led to commercial products and standards. He is a gifted teacher who has won three of MIT’s competitive teaching awards, viz. the Jamieson Award in 2012, Junior Bose Award in 2002, and the Spira Award in 2001. He has also been awarded MIT’s prestigious Harold Edgerton prize. He has been Fujitsu Chair Professor since 2011. Dr. Balakrishnan was elected a fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) in 2008, and a Fellow of the Sloan Foundation in 2002.
Dr. Balakrishnan developed the Snoop protocol, the first system to provide high TCP throughput over error-prone wireless links. He also developed new methods for TCP over asymmetric and low bandwidth networks. The RON overlay network, the Chord distributed Hash table, the Cricket indoor location system, the Infranet anti-censorship system, various improvements to Internet routing, the Congestion Manager, and binomial congestion control, and a large number of cross-layer wireless protocols are some of his other noteworthy contributions. He is one of the most-cited authors in all of Computer Science. Dr. Balakrishnan has also co-founded and/or provided consultation for many MIT Spin-off’s such as Stream Base Systems, Merali Networks (acquired by Cisco), Sandburst (acquired by Broadcom), and Cambridge Mobile Telematics.
In recognition of Dr. Hari Balakrishnan’s academic excellence and research contributions in reliable communication Systems, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to confer on him this award.
