Venkat Padmanabhan

Google Scholar Page (opens in new tab)

U.S. patents (opens in new tab)

Most influential scholars (honorable mention) in computer networking (opens in new tab) (May 2020)

Top computer scientists affiliated with Microsoft Research (opens in new tab) (May 2020)

My research has had a significant impact on the research and academic community, with my papers having received hundreds or thousands of citations (see Google Scholar (opens in new tab) for up-to-date information), and several follow-on efforts building on my work. Some of this research has also impacted Microsoft’s products through technology transfer, and even the industry at large. Here are some highlights:

• Indoor Localization: Worked on RADAR, the first system for indoor localization using the existing wireless LAN infrastructure. RADAR has spawned off much follow-on work in the research community, with our Infocom 2000 paper (opens in new tab) receiving over 8000 citations and being a recipient of the inaugural ACM SIGMOBILE Test-of-Time Paper Award (opens in new tab) in 2016. The method of fingerprinting invented in RADAR is the basis of many commercial WiFi-based indoor positioning systems (opens in new tab). Followed up with more recent work at MSR India on making calibration for WiFi-based localization “zero-effort”, through a combination of a modeling-based approach to reduce dependence on ground-truth data (EZ — Mobicom 2010 (opens in new tab)) and inertial tracking to generate ground truth data automatically (Zee — Mobicom 2012 (opens in new tab)). Transferred technology to Windows Phone.
• Wireless performance: Worked on one of the earliest studies of TCP over error-prone wireless LAN links, while at Berkeley (Sigcomm 1996 paper (opens in new tab), over 2300 citations, including the journal version), and subsequently on a novel framework for estimating the capacity of wireless mesh networks, while at MSR Redmond (Mobicom 2003 paper (opens in new tab); over 1800 citations, including the journal version). More recently, at MSR India, shifted focus to cellular network performance and its impact on battery life, with work on signal-aware communication (Bartendr — Mobicom 2010 (opens in new tab)), application-aware radio management (Radio-Jockey — Mobicom 2012 (opens in new tab)), and implicit coordination through cellular load sensing (LoadSense/Peek-n-Sneak — Mobicom 2013 (opens in new tab)).
• Web Data Transport: Worked on the persistent connection and pipelining optimizations to HTTP/1.0 during the early days of the World Wide Web, ideas which became part of the HTTP/1.1 standard (RFC 2616). Our WWW 1994 paper (opens in new tab) has over 450 citations (including the journal version). Also conducted one of the earliest studies of prefetching of Web content (CCR 1996 paper (opens in new tab); nearly 800 citations). Subsequently, as part of my PhD thesis (opens in new tab), worked on TCP-level solutions for Web data transport, including TCP Sessions (opens in new tab) and TCP Fast Start (Global Internet 1998 paper (opens in new tab)).
• IP Geo-location: Designed a suite of novel techniques for geo-locating Internet hosts, using router labels obtained from traceroute (GeoTrace), delay measurements (GeoPing), and topology-aware clustering of web logs (GeoCluster). Published Sigcomm 2001 paper (opens in new tab) (over 530 citations), which to my knowledge, was the first paper in the academic literature on IP geo-location. Transferred technology to Microsoft ad Center.
• Wireless Available Bandwidth Estimation: Developed the ProbeGap technique (IMC 2004 paper (opens in new tab), over 175 citations) for lightweight yet accurate available bandwidth estimation in wireless LANs, where contention results in non-FIFO behavior across nodes. Transferred technology to Microsoft Windows. “ProbeGap” is now a term defined in the Windows Protocol Glossary (opens in new tab) on MSDN, alongside several well-known networking terms.
• Resilient Peer-to-Peer Streaming: Proposed multi-tree-based structures for resilient P2P streaming, with multiple-description coding used to stripe content across the multiple trees, to limit disruption due to node churn. Published NOSSDAV 2002 paper (opens in new tab) (over 1200 citations) and ICNP 2003 paper (opens in new tab) (over 550 citations), which have influenced many follow-on proposals based on the multi-tree idea.
• Smartphone-based Road and Traffic Monitoring: Developed Nericell, one of the earliest systems that used the then-anticipated sensing capabilities of smartphones for monitoring of road and traffic conditions, with particular focus on India. Published SenSys 2008 paper (opens in new tab) (over 850 citations). Nericell has inspired many follow-on efforts in India and abroad.

Some of my papers have also been included in course reading lists and research area reading lists at leading universities around the world. Here is a partial list: Berkeley (opens in new tab), CMU (opens in new tab), MIT (opens in new tab), Stanford (opens in new tab), Cornell (opens in new tab), Harvard (opens in new tab), Michigan (opens in new tab), Princeton (opens in new tab), Washington (opens in new tab), Yale (opens in new tab), UCL (UK) (opens in new tab), Bilkent University (Turkey) (opens in new tab), Boston University (opens in new tab), Duke (opens in new tab), Georgia Tech (opens in new tab), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (opens in new tab), Institute for Systems and Robotics (Portugal) (opens in new tab), National Taiwan University (opens in new tab), National University of Singapore (opens in new tab), Purdue (opens in new tab), Rutgers (opens in new tab), Sun Yat-Sen University (China) (opens in new tab), UCLA (opens in new tab), UC Santa Cruz (opens in new tab), UCSD (opens in new tab), UIUC (opens in new tab), U Maryland (opens in new tab), U Massachusetts (opens in new tab), USC (opens in new tab), UT Austin (opens in new tab), U Virginia (opens in new tab), U Waterloo (Canada) (opens in new tab), U Wisconsin (opens in new tab).

Keynote talks

• The Ninth IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Memorial Lecture (opens in new tab) (Mar 2019)
• 2^nd Workshop on Physical Analytics (WPA (opens in new tab)) at ACM MobiSys, May 2015
• 7^th International Conference on Communication Systems and Networks (COMSNETS (opens in new tab)), Jan 2015
• 1^st International Conference on Networking Systems and Security (NSysS (opens in new tab)), Jan 2015
• 11^th ACM/IFIP/USENIX Middleware (opens in new tab), Dec 2010
• 4^th IEEE International Conference on Internet Multimedia Systems Architecture and Applications (IMSAA (opens in new tab)), Dec 2010

Professional recognition

• Selected for the IIT Delhi Distinguished Alumnus Award (opens in new tab) (Sep 2018)
• Appointed as Adjunct Professor in the EECS Division at the Indian Institute of Science (opens in new tab) (Aug 2018)
• Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (opens in new tab) for Science and Technology, 2016
• ACM Fellow, 2016, with the citation “For research contributions and professional leadership in networked and mobile computing systems“
• INAE Fellow, 2014, with the citation “for distinguished contributions to engineering“
• IEEE Fellow, 2012, with the citation “for contributions to networked and mobile computing systems” [nomination through IEEE Computer Society]
• ACM Distinguished Scientist, 2009
• IEEE Senior Member, 2004

Paper, Demo, and Software awards

• Best paper runner up award at ACM BuildSys 2021 (opens in new tab) (Nov 2021, certificate (opens in new tab))
• ACM SIGMM Test of Time Paper, Honourable Mention for 2002 (opens in new tab), for CoopNet paper (opens in new tab) from NOSSDAV 2002 (Oct 2020, certificate (opens in new tab))
• SIGCOMM Networking Systems Award (opens in new tab), 2020 for being among the “leading source code committers to ns-2” (Jun 2020, certificate (opens in new tab))
• ACM SenSys Test of Time Award (opens in new tab), 2019 (for Nericell (opens in new tab))
• ACM SIGMOBILE Test-of-Time Paper Award (opens in new tab), 2019 (for Nericell (opens in new tab))
• Best Corporate Demo Award at COMSNETS 2017 (opens in new tab)
• ACM SIGMOBILE Test-of-Time Paper Award (opens in new tab), 2016 (for RADAR (opens in new tab))
• Best short paper award, ACM CoNEXT 2015
• Best paper award, USENIX Annual Technical Conference, 2010
• Best paper award, COMSNETS, Jan 2010
• Best student paper award, USENIX Annual Technical Conference, 1995

Microsoft awards

• President’s Runner-Up Award from the Microsoft Online Systems Division, 2013
• Microsoft Achievement Award, 2006

Student awards

• Charles Fish Graduate Fellowship, UC Berkeley, 1993-1994
• Eugene C. Gee and Mona Fay Gee Scholarship for Graduate Study, UC Berkeley, 1995 (declined)
• Motorola Undergraduate Project Award, IIT Delhi, 1993
• Shri Pyare Lal Murgai Scholarship, IIT Delhi, 1992-1993
• Merit Prize in each semester at IIT Delhi, 1989-1993
• Gold Medal in the National Physics Olympiad, India, 1989
• National Talent Scholarship, India, 1987-1993

I have worked with several excellent students during and after their internships at Microsoft Research. The list below is of interns I worked with while at Microsoft Research Redmond; the interns from my period at Microsoft Research India are listed on the MNS group webpage (opens in new tab):

• Lili Qiu (opens in new tab), Cornell University (Summer 1999)
• Anand Balachandran (opens in new tab), UC San Diego (Fall 1999, co-mentored with Victor Bahl)
• Lakshminarayanan Subramanian (opens in new tab), UC Berkeley (Summer 2000)
• Kay Sripanidkulchai (opens in new tab), CMU (Summer 2001)
• Karthik Lakshminarayanan (opens in new tab), UC Berkeley (Summer 2002)
• Ashwin Bharambe (opens in new tab), CMU (Summer 2003 & Summer 2004)
• Gaurav Mathur (opens in new tab), BITS Pilani (Summer 2003)
• Sriram Ramabhadran (opens in new tab), UC San Diego (Summer 2004)
• Sreedhar Veeravalli, IIT Guwahati (Summer 2004, co-mentored with Jitu Padhye)
• Dilip Antony Joseph (opens in new tab), UC Berkeley (Summer 2005)
• Vladimir Brik (opens in new tab), U Wisconsin at Madison (Summer 2006)
• Nikitas Liogkas (opens in new tab), UCLA (Summer 2006, co-mentored with Sharad Agarwal)

I have held affiliate faculty appointments in the Electrical Engineering (opens in new tab) and Computer Science & Engineering (opens in new tab) departments at the University of Washington (opens in new tab). I taught a graduate networking class (opens in new tab) in the CSE department in Spring 2001. I am on the advisory board for the Wireless Communications Technology (opens in new tab) program at UW Extension. I have also served on student thesis committees at UW and elsewhere:

• Alhussein Abouzeid (opens in new tab), M.S. (1999), Ph.D. (2001), University of Washington
• Marcelo Albuquerque (opens in new tab), M.S. (2001), University of Washington
• Lakshminarayanan Subramanian (opens in new tab), M.S. (2002), University of California at Berkeley
• Ashwin Bharambe (opens in new tab), Ph.D. (expected 2007), Carnegie Mellon University
• Manish Kumar C., M.Sc. (Engg.) (2008), Indian Institute of Science
• Rijurekha Sen (opens in new tab), Ph.D. (2013), IIT Bombay
• Swati Rallapalli (opens in new tab), Ph.D. (2014), University of Texas at Austin
• Swarun Kumar (opens in new tab), Ph.D. (2015), MIT

Editorial board service

• ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review (CCR) (opens in new tab), 2005-2007
• IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (opens in new tab), 2002-2004
• IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (opens in new tab), 2002-2004

Chair positions

• Founder and Co-Chair of the 1st Workshop on Physical Analytics (opens in new tab) (2014)
• Chair of the ACM SIGCOMM Technical Steering Committee (opens in new tab) (2013-2014)
• General Co-Chair of COMSNETS 2014 (opens in new tab)
• Program Co-Chair for ACM SIGCOMM 2012 (opens in new tab)
• Panels Co-Chair for COMSNETS 2011 (opens in new tab)
• General Co-Chair for ACM SIGCOMM 2010 (opens in new tab) in New Delhi
• Primary organizer of the MSR India Summer School on Networking (opens in new tab), June 2009 (in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science)
• Program Chair for IEEE HotWeb 2008 (opens in new tab)
• Program Co-Chair for ACM/USENIX Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) 2005 (opens in new tab)
• Workshop and Program Co-chair for ACM NOSSDAV 2004 (opens in new tab)
• Invited Talks Chair for WISARD 2008 (opens in new tab)
• Vice Chair for WWW 2006 Pervasive Web & Mobility Track (opens in new tab)
• Industrial Liaison Co-Chair for ACM Mobicom 2005 (opens in new tab)
• Tutorials Co-Chair for ACM Mobicom 2000 (opens in new tab)

Program committee membership

• ACM/USENIX MobiSys: 2007 (opens in new tab), 2011 (opens in new tab)
• ACM SIGCOMM: 2004 (opens in new tab), 2007 (opens in new tab), 2011 (opens in new tab), 2012 (opens in new tab) (co-chair), 2013 (opens in new tab), 2016 (opens in new tab)
• NSDI: 2010 (opens in new tab), 2015 (opens in new tab)
• Workshop on Physical Analytics: 2014 (opens in new tab) (co-chair), 2015 (opens in new tab), 2016 (opens in new tab)
• CoNEXT: 2006 (opens in new tab), 2009 (opens in new tab)
• ACM SIGMETRICS: 2003 (opens in new tab), 2008 (opens in new tab)
• COMSNETS: 2009 (opens in new tab)
• COMSWARE: 2008 (opens in new tab)
• ACM Mobicom: 2000 (opens in new tab), 2001 (opens in new tab), 2002 (opens in new tab)
• IEEE Infocom: 2001 (opens in new tab), 2002 (opens in new tab), 2005 (opens in new tab)
• ACM HotNets: 2005 (opens in new tab), 2011 (opens in new tab)
• ACM Internet Measurement Conference: 2002 (opens in new tab), 2005 (opens in new tab) (co-chair)
• ACM NOSSDAV: 2000 (opens in new tab), 2002 (opens in new tab), 2003 (opens in new tab), 2004 (opens in new tab) (co-chair)
• International Workshop on Peer-to-Peer Systems (IPTPS): 2007 (opens in new tab)
• International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS): 2005 (opens in new tab)
• SPIE/ACM Multimedia Computing and Networking (MMCN): 2002 (opens in new tab), 2003 (opens in new tab)
• IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP): 2002 (opens in new tab), 2003 (opens in new tab)
• International World Wide Web Conference (WWW): 2002 (opens in new tab), 2003 (opens in new tab), 2006 (opens in new tab)
• ACM Workshop on Wireless Mobile Multimedia (in conjunction with ACM Mobicom): 1999 (opens in new tab), 2000 (opens in new tab)
• Performance and Architecture of Web Servers (in conjunction with ACM SIGMETRICS): 2000 (opens in new tab), 2001 (opens in new tab)

Membership of other committees

• IEEE Internet Award Committee (opens in new tab) (2016 onwards)
• ACM SIGCOMM Industrial Liaison Board (opens in new tab) (2014 onwards)
• ACM SIGCOMM Technical Steering Committee (opens in new tab) (2013-2016)