Balakrishnan named associate dean for research in the College of Engineering
Balakrishnan received the B.Tech degree in electronics and communication from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1985. He then attended Stanford University, where he received the M.S. degree in statistics and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1992. Following post-doctoral stints at Stanford University, Caltech, and the Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland, he joined the Purdue School of ECE in 1994 as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to the rank of Professor in 2003. He served as the ECE Assistant Head for Strategic Initiatives and Director of Graduate Admissions in 2003-04. Since 2004, he has been serving as the ECE Associate Head for Instruction. Since May 2007, he has also been serving as an Interim Assistant Dean in the Office of Research in the College of Engineering.
Professor Balakrishnan’s primary research interests are in applying numerical techniques, especially those based on convex optimization, towards engineering applications. He is a co-author of the monograph Linear Matrix Inequalities in System and Control Theory, published by SIAM, Philadelphia, in 1994. Professor Balakrishan received the President of India Gold medal from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1985, the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research in 1997, the Ruth and Joel Spira Outstanding Teacher Award from the Purdue School of ECE in 1998, and the Honeywell Award for excellence in teaching from the Purdue School of ECE in 2001.