Venkat Padmanabhan
Deputy Managing Director, Microsoft Research India
Highlights
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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 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 receiving over 8000 citations and being a recipient of the inaugural ACM SIGMOBILE Test-of-Time Paper Award in 2016. The method of fingerprinting invented in RADAR is the basis of many commercial WiFi-based indoor positioning systems. 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) and inertial tracking to generate ground truth data automatically (Zee — Mobicom 2012). 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, 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; 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), application-aware radio management (Radio-Jockey — Mobicom 2012), and implicit coordination through cellular load sensing (LoadSense/Peek-n-Sneak — Mobicom 2013).
- 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 has over 450 citations (including the journal version). Also conducted one of the earliest studies of prefetching of Web content (CCR 1996 paper; nearly 800 citations). Subsequently, as part of my PhD thesis, worked on TCP-level solutions for Web data transport, including TCP Sessions and TCP Fast Start (Global Internet 1998 paper).
- 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 (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, 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 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 (over 1200 citations) and ICNP 2003 paper (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 (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, CMU, MIT, Stanford, Cornell, Harvard, Michigan, Princeton, Washington, Yale, UCL (UK), Bilkent University (Turkey), Boston University, Duke, Georgia Tech, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Institute for Systems and Robotics (Portugal), National Taiwan University, National University of Singapore, Purdue, Rutgers, Sun Yat-Sen University (China), UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, UCSD, UIUC, U Maryland, U Massachusetts, USC, UT Austin, U Virginia, U Waterloo (Canada), U Wisconsin.
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Keynote talks
- The Ninth IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Memorial Lecture (Mar 2019)
- 2nd Workshop on Physical Analytics (WPA) at ACM MobiSys, May 2015
- 7th International Conference on Communication Systems and Networks (COMSNETS), Jan 2015
- 1st International Conference on Networking Systems and Security (NSysS), Jan 2015
- 11th ACM/IFIP/USENIX Middleware, Dec 2010
- 4th IEEE International Conference on Internet Multimedia Systems Architecture and Applications (IMSAA), Dec 2010
Professional recognition
- Selected for the IIT Delhi Distinguished Alumnus Award (Sep 2018)
- Appointed as Adjunct Professor in the EECS Division at the Indian Institute of Science (Aug 2018)
- Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize 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 (Nov 2021, certificate)
- ACM SIGMM Test of Time Paper, Honourable Mention for 2002, for CoopNet paper from NOSSDAV 2002 (Oct 2020, certificate)
- SIGCOMM Networking Systems Award, 2020 for being among the “leading source code committers to ns-2” (Jun 2020, certificate)
- ACM SenSys Test of Time Award, 2019 (for Nericell)
- ACM SIGMOBILE Test-of-Time Paper Award, 2019 (for Nericell)
- Best Corporate Demo Award at COMSNETS 2017
- ACM SIGMOBILE Test-of-Time Paper Award, 2016 (for RADAR)
- 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
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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:
- Lili Qiu, Cornell University (Summer 1999)
- Anand Balachandran, UC San Diego (Fall 1999, co-mentored with Victor Bahl)
- Lakshminarayanan Subramanian, UC Berkeley (Summer 2000)
- Kay Sripanidkulchai, CMU (Summer 2001)
- Karthik Lakshminarayanan, UC Berkeley (Summer 2002)
- Ashwin Bharambe, CMU (Summer 2003 & Summer 2004)
- Gaurav Mathur, BITS Pilani (Summer 2003)
- Sriram Ramabhadran, UC San Diego (Summer 2004)
- Sreedhar Veeravalli, IIT Guwahati (Summer 2004, co-mentored with Jitu Padhye)
- Dilip Antony Joseph, UC Berkeley (Summer 2005)
- Vladimir Brik, U Wisconsin at Madison (Summer 2006)
- Nikitas Liogkas, UCLA (Summer 2006, co-mentored with Sharad Agarwal)
I have held affiliate faculty appointments in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science & Engineering departments at the University of Washington. I taught a graduate networking class in the CSE department in Spring 2001. I am on the advisory board for the Wireless Communications Technology program at UW Extension. I have also served on student thesis committees at UW and elsewhere:
- Alhussein Abouzeid, M.S. (1999), Ph.D. (2001), University of Washington
- Marcelo Albuquerque, M.S. (2001), University of Washington
- Lakshminarayanan Subramanian, M.S. (2002), University of California at Berkeley
- Ashwin Bharambe, Ph.D. (expected 2007), Carnegie Mellon University
- Manish Kumar C., M.Sc. (Engg.) (2008), Indian Institute of Science
- Rijurekha Sen, Ph.D. (2013), IIT Bombay
- Swati Rallapalli, Ph.D. (2014), University of Texas at Austin
- Swarun Kumar, Ph.D. (2015), MIT
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Editorial board service
- ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review (CCR), 2005-2007
- IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 2002-2004
- IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 2002-2004
Chair positions
- Founder and Co-Chair of the 1st Workshop on Physical Analytics (2014)
- Chair of the ACM SIGCOMM Technical Steering Committee (2013-2014)
- General Co-Chair of COMSNETS 2014
- Program Co-Chair for ACM SIGCOMM 2012
- Panels Co-Chair for COMSNETS 2011
- General Co-Chair for ACM SIGCOMM 2010 in New Delhi
- Primary organizer of the MSR India Summer School on Networking, June 2009 (in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science)
- Program Chair for IEEE HotWeb 2008
- Program Co-Chair for ACM/USENIX Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) 2005
- Workshop and Program Co-chair for ACM NOSSDAV 2004
- Invited Talks Chair for WISARD 2008
- Vice Chair for WWW 2006 Pervasive Web & Mobility Track
- Industrial Liaison Co-Chair for ACM Mobicom 2005
- Tutorials Co-Chair for ACM Mobicom 2000
Program committee membership
- ACM/USENIX MobiSys: 2007, 2011
- ACM SIGCOMM: 2004, 2007, 2011, 2012 (co-chair), 2013, 2016
- NSDI: 2010, 2015
- Workshop on Physical Analytics: 2014 (co-chair), 2015, 2016
- CoNEXT: 2006, 2009
- ACM SIGMETRICS: 2003, 2008
- COMSNETS: 2009
- COMSWARE: 2008
- ACM Mobicom: 2000, 2001, 2002
- IEEE Infocom: 2001, 2002, 2005
- ACM HotNets: 2005, 2011
- ACM Internet Measurement Conference: 2002, 2005 (co-chair)
- ACM NOSSDAV: 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 (co-chair)
- International Workshop on Peer-to-Peer Systems (IPTPS): 2007
- International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS): 2005
- SPIE/ACM Multimedia Computing and Networking (MMCN): 2002, 2003
- IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP): 2002, 2003
- International World Wide Web Conference (WWW): 2002, 2003, 2006
- ACM Workshop on Wireless Mobile Multimedia (in conjunction with ACM Mobicom): 1999, 2000
- Performance and Architecture of Web Servers (in conjunction with ACM SIGMETRICS): 2000, 2001
Membership of other committees
- IEEE Internet Award Committee (2016 onwards)
- ACM SIGCOMM Industrial Liaison Board (2014 onwards)
- ACM SIGCOMM Technical Steering Committee (2013-2016)