Dr. Sukumaran Nair is a Southern Methodist University Distinguished Professor and the founding director of the AT&T Center for Virtualization at SMU. Along with these roles, he has a history of involvement across departments and programs. Namely, he is the founder of the Cyber Security program at SMU, and he was the Chair of the Computer Science and Engineering Department from 2008 until 2016.
Dr. Nair has joined the Hunt Institute as a Fellow, accompanied by his prowess in computer engineering and cyber security. At the SMU AT&T Center for Virtualization, researchers from across the University conduct interdisciplinary research to address technical, economic and social issues related to virtualization of all elements of the pervasive digital infrastructure.
When asked about his motivation to do impactful work, Dr. Nair responded, “We are excited to join hands with the Hunt Institute in empowering rural development through technology.”
His research interests include software-centric telecommunication networks, software-defined networks, virtualization technologies, trustworthy AI, and cyber security. He has published extensively in the area of high assurance computing and networking. His research has been supported through funds from the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Security Agency (NSA), National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), Office of Naval Research (ONR), and various industry leaders including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, CAE, IBM, AT&T, and Google. Some of his recent awards include the Dallas 500 award and CIO/CTO award for Outstanding Tech Advocate from the D CEO magazine, SMU Ford Research Fellowship, IBM faculty award, and the Distinguished University Citizen award.
He received his B.S. from the University of Kerala, India in 1984, his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana in 1988 and 1990, respectively.
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