1985 - B.Tech - Electrical Engineering Professor, @ University of Illinois
Prof. Srikant graduated with a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras in 1985. He later obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1988 and 1991, respectively. He was a member of the Technical Staff at AT & T Bell Laboratories from 1991-95. He is currently the Frederick G. and Elizabeth H. Nearing Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and a Professor in the Coordinated Science Laboratory at UIUC.
Prof. Srikant has made fundamental contributions in at least four major areas in networking: scheduling of wireless networks, analysis of cellular systems, wireline congestion control, and design and analysis of peer-to-peer systems. In each case, his work is characterized by seeking of rigorous quantitative answers to problems of topical interest. Indeed, one could claim that all areas in networking have been influenced by him and bear his imprint.
Prof. Srikant’s work on optimization, control and heavy traffic analysis has provided theoretical clarity to central problems in communication networks such as congestion control in wireline networks, and the MaxWeight scheduling algorithms in wireless networks. Prof. Srikant’s research has also spawned several real world applications. His design of the TCP-Illinois protocol, in the field of congestion control, is now a part of Linux releases. Further, his work on peer-to-peer systems using both stochastic and deterministic models has provided significant insights on the file sharing protocol on BitTorrent. Even within networking, these are just a sampling of Prof. Srikant’s contributions, and he has contributed greatly in other areas outside networking as well.
The above contributions clearly show the great adaptability, creativity and depth of research that has been sustained by Prof. Srikant over a long period of time. As topics in networking have evolved, he has continued to contribute imaginatively and rigorously to the emerging challenges in topical problems. He was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 2006, and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE/ACM Transactions in Networking.
In recognition of Prof. Srikant’s fundamental and sustained contributions to a broad swathe of topical problems in networking, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to confer upon him this award.
