Naren Ramakrishnan

Naren Ramakrishnan's research on data science, applied machine learning, and urban analytics has been supported by government agencies like NSF, DHS, NIH, NEH, IARPA, DARPA, DTRA, ONR, U.S. Army Research Office, U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC); and companies that include Ford, General Motors, General Dynamics, HP Labs, L3 Communications, Lockheed Martin, Mayfair Group, Northrop Grumman, and NEC Labs.

Ramakrishnan has published 17 edited books/proceedings and book chapters, 150 journal articles, and 200 peer-reviewed conference/workshop papers.  

In addition, his work has also been featured in the National Institutes of Health outreach publication, Biomedical Computation Review; the National Science Foundation’s Discoveries series; Wall Street Journal; Newsweek; Smithsonian Magazine; Chronicle of Higher Education; and Popular Science.

Ramakrishnan joined Virginia Tech in 1998. He served as associate department head for graduate studies in the Department of Computer Science from 2008 to 2012. In 2011, he was founding director of the Sanghani Center.  He also led the creation of Virginia Tech’s multidisciplinary graduate certificate in urban computing supported by a highly competitive National Science Foundation National Research Traineeship (NRT) grant. 

His numerous honors and professional recognitions include Virginia Tech’s Alumni Award for Excellence in Research in 2011, and Dean’s awards for Excellence in Teaching in 2005 and Research in 2010. 

In 2009, Ramakrishnan was named an Association for Computing Machinery Distinguished Scientist. He is also a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' Computer Society; American Association for the Advancement of Science; and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. 

He received his master's degree from Anna University in India and a Ph.D. from Purdue University, which named him a “40 under 40” alumnus in 2010.