"I am extremely honored to be receiving this award. My time at Purdue working under Prof. Jan Allebach and on projects sponsored by Hewlett-Packard created a very strong foundation for my career. From Jan I got the freedom to be creative in my research; HP provided access to real world problems; and Purdue provided excellent teachers and colleagues. I am very thankful for this training in research and engineering and for the people I have met because of my time at Purdue."

 

Dr. Dhiraj Kacker has been working in the field of digital imaging since 1991. Most recently he was CEO of Canvera.com, India’s top online photography company. As co-founder, Dr. Kacker grew Canvera from an idea to more than 1,100 employees while raising in excess of $20 million in venture capital and establishing Canvera as a premiere brand in India.

Dr. Kacker and his co-founder were twice named to the list of the top-10 most influential people in photography in India. From 2000-2004 Dr. Kacker was a research and development engineer at Shutterfly.com, a company that is today the top online photography company in the United States. Dr. Kacker was part of the core team that built Shutterfly’s imaging and printing workflow automation technologies. Dr. Kacker is presently working as an independent advisor and mentor to early stage start-ups in the Bay Area.

Dr. Kacker received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 2000 and a B.Tech in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Techonology, Mumbai.