Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan Institute Chair Professorship

Description

Professor C. Pandu Rangan completed his B.Sc and M.Sc Mathematics from the University of Madras in 1975 and 1977 respectively. Later he received his Ph.D., from IISc, Bangalore in 1984. He started his journey as a lecturer in the Department of Computer science, IIT Madras in 1982. In his career he guided 200+ students from various B.Tech, M.Tech, Phd, etc.,

His research focus is in the design of pragmatic algorithms. His areas of Interest includes Cryptography, Data Structures and Algorithms, Graph Algorithms, Computational Geometry, Parallel Algorithms, Randomized Algorithms, Distributed Algorithms, VLSI, Discrete Mathematics, Theory of Computation, Computational Biology,  Theoretical Computer Science, Technology Enhanced Learning. In Cryptology his current focus is on secure message transmission and Provable security of cryptographic protocols / primitives.

 A distinguished contribution of Prof. Pandurangan is in motivating students, especially the undergraduates, for research and mentoring them to convert their potential to success. Over the past three decades more than 45 undergraduates have published top quality research papers under his mentorship. Many of them have gone on become faculty members and leading researchers in USA and India. He has actively participated in creation of IIT, Hyderabad by being a member in its founding team and serving as first Head of CSE dept. and built the entire department from the start. He was involved in setting up and upgrading the ISI Chennai unit to a centre and served as its first Head. 

Professor has won various awards and honours which includes Fellow, Indian National Academy of Engineering, 2006, Member, Board of Directors, International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR), Member, Board of Directors, Society for Electronics Transaction and Security (SETS), Member, Editorial Board, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Series (LNCS Series), Springer-Verlag, Germany, Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing. He has various publications at his credit both national and international level and these were well received.

We request all alumni who have interacted with Prof Pandu Rangan, and have fond memories with him, to sponsor the Chair he occupies. An Institute Chair requires an Endowment of Rs 65 lakhs ($ 100K), and the annual returns from the principal will be given as honorarium to the Chair Professor.