Vijayakumar Bhagavatula
Interim Dean, College of Engineering
U.A. & Helen Whitaker Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Vijayakumar Bhagavatula received his B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in electrical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Since 1982, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Carnegie Mellon where he is now the U.A. & Helen Whitaker Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Bhagavatula’s research interests include computer vision and pattern recognition algorithms and applications and coding and signal processing for data storage systems. His publications include the book Correlation Pattern Recognition, 22 book chapters, more than 410 conference papers, and 210 journal papers. He is also the co-inventor of 15 patents. He served as a topical editor for Applied Optics and as an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security.
Bhagavatula has served on many conference program committees and was a co-chair of the 2008-2010 SPIE conferences on Biometric Technology for Human Identification, a co-program chair of the 2012 IEEE Biometrics: Theory, Applications and Systems (BTAS) conference and a program committee co-chair for the 2015 International Conference on Biometrics (ICB). He has also received numerous awards and honors.
Past appointments
- U.A. & Helen Whitaker Professor of ECE, CMU, September 1991 –
- Director, Carnegie Mellon University Africa, Kigali, Rwanda, January 2018 – December 2021
- Interim Vice Provost for Research, Carnegie Mellon University, April 2017 – December 2017
- Associate Dean for Graduate and Faculty Affairs, College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, July 2010 – March 2017.
- Interim Dean, College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, August 1, 2012 – December 31, 2012.
- Acting Head of the Department, Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department, CMU, July 2004 - February 2005.
- Associate Department Head of ECE, CMU, July 1994 - June 1996.
- Associate Professor of ECE, CMU, September 1987 - August 1991.
- Assistant Professor of ECE, CMU, September 1982 - August 1987.
Honors and awards
- Fellow, SPIE, the International Society of Optical Engineering (1991)
- Fellow, Optical Society of America (1993).
- Fellow, IAPR, the International Association of Pattern Recognition (2006)
- Fellow, IEEE (2010)
- Fellow, AAAS, American Association for Advancement of Science (2016).
- Fellow, NAI, National Academy of Inventors (2017)
- Fellow. AAIA, Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (2022)
- Adjunct Professor, Department of Computing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, October 2013 –
- U.A. & Helen Whitaker Professorship in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 2014
- Departmental Academic Advisor, Department of Computing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2010 – 2017)
- Listed in Marquis Who's Who in the World.
- Recipient of Carnegie Institute of Technology’s Philip Dowd Fellowship (2003)
- Recipient of Eta Kappa Nu award for Outstanding Faculty in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at CMU, May 2003.
- Co-author of the 2008 Best Student Paper in Data Storage area, Data Storage Technical Committee of IEEE Communications Society.
- Co-recipient of 2008 Carnegie Institute of Technology (Engineering College at CMU) Outstanding Faculty Research Award.
- Co-author of the 2010 Best Student Paper award at the SPIE conference on Automatic Target Recognition, Orlando, FL.
- Co-author, 2010 Best Innovative Paper award at the Biometrics: Theory, Applications and Systems (BTAS) conference.
- Co-author, Best student paper award at the 8th International Symposium on Image and Signal Processing and Analysis (ISPA 2013), Trieste, Italy, September 2013
- Co-author, Best paper award at the IEEE Biometrics: Theory, Applications and Systems (BTAS) conference, Washington DC, October 2013
- Best Paper Award, IEEE International Conference on Identity, Security and Behavior Analysis (ISBA), Sendai, Japan, March 2016.
- Best Paper Award, IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 2016.
- Co-author, 2017 IEEE Data Storage Best Student Paper Award (March 2019).
- Inaugural recipient of the CMU College of Engineering’s Faculty Service Award, 2019.
Generating Maps from GPS Data
Education
1980 Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
1977 Master of Technology, Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
1975 Bachelor of Technology, Electrical Engineering, Indian institute of Technology, Kanpur
Media mentions
CMU Engineering
Vijayakumar Bhagavatula named interim dean of the College of Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University has named Vijayakumar Bhagavatula interim dean of the College of Engineering.
Carnegie Mellon University Africa
Afretec awards almost $1.7 million
13 grants, collectively led by researchers from all members of Afretec, have been awarded to make a positive impact on health, environment and sustainability, and energy in Africa.
CMU-Africa
Afretec planning grants announced
The African Engineering and Technology Network, led by CMU-Africa, awarded six planning grants to research collaborations that will lead to socio-economic impact and focus on driving inclusive digital growth on the continent.
CMU Engineering
Allen Robinson named new director of CMU-Africa
Allen Robinson has been named the next director of CMU-Africa, effective January 1, 2022.
Carnegie Mellon University Africa
Carnegie Mellon University Africa Celebrates 8th Graduation
The 8th annual CMU-Africa graduation ceremony took place on Sunday, May 23, celebrating this year’s graduating class of 66 graduates from 12 different countries in Africa.
CyLab Security and Privacy Institute
CMU-Africa and CyLab aim to improve financial inclusion in emerging economies
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) CyLab and CMU-Africa have established the CyLab-Africa initiative, which aims to improve the cybersecurity of financial systems in Africa and other emerging economies.
Bhagavatula participates in World Academic Summit panel
CMU-Africa Director Vijayakumar Bhagavatula participated in a panel discussion on “An innovation in ‘excellence’—new concepts from Africa” at the World Academic Summit in September.
ACM ICAIF
Bhagavatula gives ACM ICAIF talk
CMU-Africa Director Vijayakumar Bhagavatula gave an invited talk at the ACM AI in Africa workshop on October 14.
IEEE UEMCON
Bhagavatula gives talk at IEEE UEMCON
CMU-Africa Director Vijayakumar Bhagavatula presented a talk on learning from weakly-supervised image datat at the IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics, and Mobile Communications Conference in October.
2021 Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision
Bhagavatula to be program committee member
CMU-Africa’s Vijayakumar Bhagavatula is a program committee member at the 2021 Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV).
Times Higher Education
Bhagavatula quoted on collaboration across universities
CMU-Africa’s Vijayakumar Bhagavatula spoke at The World Academic Summit about collaboration possibilities between Western and African universities.
CMU Engineering
CMU-Africa mobilizes to continue classes during COVID-19
When the Government of Rwanda implemented a nationwide lockdown because of coronavirus, CMU-Africa transitioned to remote learning in less than a week