Venkataramanan (Ragu) Balakrishnan

Biography

Venkataramanan Balakrishnan (M’94–SM’06– F’12) received the B.Tech. degree in electronics and communication from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1985. He received an M.S. degree in statistics and a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1992, both from Stanford University, CA, USA.

Since 1994, he has served on the faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA, where he is now Professor and Michael and Katherine Head. His primary research interests are in applying numerical techniques, especially those based on convex optimization, to problems in engineering. He is a co-author of the monograph Linear Matrix Inequalities in System and Control Theory, published by SIAM, Philadelphia, PA, USA, in 1994.

Dr. Balakrishnan received the President of India Gold medal from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1985, the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research in 1997, the Ruth and Joel Spira Outstanding Teacher Award in 1998 and the Honeywell Award for excellence in teaching in 2001 from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. He was named a Purdue University Faculty Scholar in 2008.