Dr. Chandrasekhar Narayanaswami
B. Tech., 1986, Electrical Engineering

Dr. Chandrasekhar Narayanaswami is a Distinguished Research Start at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA. Dr. Narayanaswami earned his B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1986. He then obtained his Masters of Science (MS) and Ph.D. degrees in Computer and Systems Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY in 1987 and 1991, respectively.

Dr. Narayanaswami’s work on mobile and wearable computing has had a tangible impact on the current landscape of smartphones, watches and other embedded devices used all over the world. This work has influenced power management techniques, user interface paradigms, and the adoption of Linux or a close derivative operating system for these devices.

In addition to mobile computing, Dr. Narayanaswami has worked in the fields of computer graphics and electronic commerce. His contributions in computer graphics include the design of graphics accelerators and floating-point engines, the first software implementation of OpenGL, and the concept of automatically geotagging digital images at time of capture. In electronic commerce, his work has spanned personalized mobile coupons, use of mobile devices for payments, location based services and personalization, and big data platforms for e-commerce operations. He currently leads the supply chain area at IBM Research and focuses on building sustainable and intelligent self-correcting supply chains.

Dr. Narayanaswami is a Fellow of the IEEE and ACM. He is also a member of the IBM Academy of Technology and the IBM Industry Academy. His papers have been recognized with Test of Time and Best Paper Awards. His projects have received the Red Dot Design and Best of PC World Expo awards. He was also named IBM Master Inventor twice.


Special Memories

Watching movies on Friday nights at the Convo, post-midnight dashes to the Rainbow canteen when it was around, long chat sessions in hostel rooms overflowing with students from all over India. And of course, learning from several world-class professors who taught us to be confident, but never over-confident, by throwing a few googlies in their quizzes, mid-sems, and end-sems that stumped the best in the class.