Prof. George Varghese
B.Tech., 1981, Electrical Engineering

Prof. George Varghese is a Principal Engineer and Partner at Microsoft Research. He earlier taught at the Washington University from 1993-1999, followed by a stint at the University of California, San Diego from 1999 to 2013. He was moreover, a Distinguished Visitor in the Computer Science Department of Stanford University in 2010-2011. He has also worked for DEC, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft. In 2004, he founded NetSift which was acquired by Cisco in 2005. His contributions in developing various network algorithms has fetched him 22 patents in the general field of Network Algorithmics. Several algorithms which he has helped develop over the years, appear in commercial systems including Linux (timing wheels), the Cisco GSR (DRR), and Microsoft Windows (IP lookups). He helped in designing the hardware lookup engine for Procket’s 40 Gbps router. He has been on the advisory boards of Memoir, Jibe, Sanera and SwitchOn, and provided consultancy to ST MicroElectronics, AOL and Fujitsu.

Prof. Varghese graduated in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1981 and received his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1993. He is a recipient of IEEE Kobayashi Award for Computers and Communications and SIGCOMM Lifetime Award in Networking, both in 2014. He has also been a Fellow of the ACM since 2002.

His hobbies include reading books on Christian theology and detective stories.


Special Memories

I still remember the kindness bestowed on me by Prof. Arunkumar and Prof. Narayanan during my B.Tech. days. My visits to their homes; traveling with the IIT Quiz team; my batch mates from Hostel No. 4 and our endless conversations, especially during nights, while visiting Hostel No. 2 for tea – are all part of my special memories of IITB