Short Bio
Prof. Rajiv Ranjan is an Australian-British computer scientist, of Indian origin, known for his research in Distributed Systems (Cloud Computing, Big Data, and the Internet of Things). He is the University Chair Professor for the Internet of Things research in the School of Computing of Newcastle University, United Kingdom. He is the director of the Networked and Ubiquitous Systems Engineering (NUSE) Group in the School of Computing. He is also the Academic Director (School’s Chair) of the School of Computing and the Research Director of Newcastle Urban Observatory. He is an internationally established scientist in the area of Distributed Systems (having published over 300 scientific papers out of which about 60 papers in the IEEE/ACM Transactions Journals). He is a fellow of IEEE (2024), Academia Europaea (2022) and the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (2023). He is also the Founding Director of the International Centre (UK-Australia) on the EV Security and National Edge Artificial Intelligence Hub, both funded by EPSRC.
Prof. Ranjan is thankful to the research community for recognising his research through citations and using the open-source tools that he help develop along with collaborators. He is ranked by Microsoft Academic as one of the Top Authors in Cloud Computing (2010-2020), Big Data (1997-2021), Quality of Service (2000-2019), Resource Management (2000-2019), and Services Computing (1999-2018). According to a recent (2020) bibliometric study by the Stanford University (https://bit.ly/3ndOXlN), he is one of the highly cited authors in the distributed computing field. Other bibliometric evidences (Guide2Research and UCLA) also reveal immense support and acceptance from his peers.
He has secured more than $68 Million+ AUD (£34 Million+ GBP, with collaborators) in the form of competitive research grants from both public and private agencies. He is an innovator with strong and sustained academic and industrial impact and a globally recognized R&D leader with the proven track record. He serves on the editorial boards of top quality international journals including IEEE Transactions on Computers (2014-2016), IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, ACM Computing Surveys, ACM Transactions on the Internet of Things, The Computer (Oxford University), The Computing (Springer) and Future Generation Computer Systems (2012-2020).
He led the Blue Skies section (department, 2014-2019) of IEEE Cloud Computing, where his principal role was to identify and write about most important, cutting-edge research issues at the intersection of multiple, inter-dependent research disciplines within distributed systems research area including Internet of Things, Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, and Edge Computing.
Before moving to Newcastle University, he was Julius Fellow (2013-2015), Senior Research Scientist (equivalent to Senior Lecturer in Australian/UK University Grading System) and Project Leader in the Digital Productivity and Services Flagship of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO – Australian Government’s Premier Research Agency). Prior to that, he was a Senior Research Associate (Lecturer level B) in the School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW).
Dr. Ranjan was awarded an integrated Masters and Ph.D. (2003-2008) by the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, the University of Melbourne. In the QS World University Rankings 2024, the University of Melbourne was ranked 14th globally (1st nationally). Dr. Ranjan was awarded a Bachelor of Computer Engineering degree (2003, Scoring 79% – First Class with Distinction, GPA 3.97/4.0, first rank in the class and across the engineering faculty disciplines) by the North Gujarat University. He completed primary (CBSE, A1 Grades in all subjects in std 10) and secondary education (CBSE, A1 Grades in Maths and Physics in std 12) from K V Sivasagar, Assam, India (1987-1990), K V Panvel, Maharashtra, India (1990-1996), and K V Mehsana, Gujarat, India (1996-1998).
Dr. Ranjan’s research excellence is evidenced by the following recognitions and awards.
- 2022 IEEE UCC Best Paper Award (https://ucc-conference.org/). This award annually recognizes a student paper from either academia or industry that has demonstrated outstanding contributions to the Utility and Cloud Computing paradigm.
- 2022 IEEE Cloud Best Student Paper Award (https://conferences.computer.org/services/2022/awards/). This award annually recognizes a student paper from either academia or industry that has demonstrated outstanding contributions to the Cloud Computing paradigm.
- 2019 IEEE TCSVC Rising Star Award (http://tab.computer.org/tcsvc/activities/). This award annually recognises up to two researchers from either academia or industry who have demonstrated outstanding contributions (publications, citations, grant record, community service) to the field of Services Computing.
- 2019 IEEE Systems Council Best Paper Award (https://ieeesystemscouncil.org/awards/systems-journal-best-paper-award). This award is given annually to the papers deemed the best among those published in the IEEE Systems Journal during the preceding calendar year.
- 2018 IEEE TCCPS Early Career Award (http://www.ieee-cps.org/award.html). This award annually recognizes up to two researchers from either academia or industry who has demonstrated outstanding contributions (publications, citations, grant record, community service) to the field of Cyber-Physical System (CPS).
- 2018 IEEE Systems Council Best Paper Award (https://ieeesystemscouncil.org/awards/systems-journal-best-paper-award). This award is given annually to the papers deemed the best among those published in the IEEE Systems Journal during the preceding calendar year.
- 2017 Elsevier High Quality Research Paper, G-Hadoop paper (doi: 10.1016/j.future.2012.09.001) selected by Elsevier for celebrating the Chinese Computer Science Research landscape in the last five years (2012-2017).
- 2016 IEEE TCSC Award for Excellence in Scalable Computing (Middle Career Researcher). Recognizing only 3 individuals for outstanding, influential, on-going, potentially long-lasting contributions to scalable computing within 5-10 years of receiving their PhD. Criteria: excellence in publications, citations, community service, research supervision and grant record.
- 2014 ICT Young Professional of the Year Award (Finalist) Recognizing the top 3 professionals in Australian Govt. Departments who have made major innovations in the ICT sector that year.
- 2013 Julius Career Award Fellowship. Conferred by Office of Chief Executive, CSIRO, Australia. Honours outstanding scientists who demonstrate research excellence.
- 2013 Best Paper Award (csu.edu.cn/conference/hpcc2013/bestpaper/hpcc-2-90.pdf) for ‘Using Traditional Data Analysis Algorithms to Detect Access Patterns for Big Data Processing’, 15th IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications.
- 2011 Goldstar Award, (https://research.unsw.edu.au/unsw-internal-funding-opportunities#Goldstar_Anchor). Presented by UNSW for excellent research outcomes to researchers who narrowly miss out on Australian Research Council Discovery Project (http://www.arc.gov.au/) grant funding.
- 2009 Outstanding Paper on New Communications Topic. For ‘Peer-to-Peer Based Discovery of Grid Resource Information: A Tutorial’ (doi: 1109/COMST.2008.4564477) in IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials Journal. Given (www.comsoc.org/about/memberprograms/comsoc-awards/advances) to a paper that opens new lines of work, envisions bold approaches to communication, formulates new problems to solve, and enlarges the field of communications engineering, published in any IEEE Communications Society journal or conference in the previous 15 calendar years.
- 2003-2007 International Postgraduate Research Scholarship Award, Department of Education. To attract top quality international postgraduate students to Australian research. Each year, only 330 awards are offered across 40 Australian universities. (http://education.gov.au/international-postgraduate-research-scholarships)
During 2001-2002, he worked as a software engineer (research intern) on a very prestigious project of Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), India. PRL is a National Research Institute for space and allied sciences, supported mainly by Department of Space, Government of India. In particular, he worked on the project titled “Software Development for Characterisation of Detectors of SoXS payload, and Image Processing and Data Analysis acquired from SoXS mission.” This software was used to analyze the data sent by the SoXS (Solar X-ray Spectrometer) payload of the GSAT-2 satellite.
He is an Australian Citizen (through naturalisation), a British Citizen (through naturalisation) and an Overseas Citizen of India. He was born in a very small village (Hakimpur) located in the Vaishali District of the Bihar State Province of India.
Appointments
Fellow (July 2021 – )
Academia Europaea
Academic Director (Chair of the School) (September 2020 – )
School of Computing
Director of Research and Innovation (May 2020 – )
Newcastle Urban Observatory
Discipline Head (September 2019 – )
Networked and Ubiquitous Systems Engineering
School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, UK
Chair (Professor) Internet of Things (August 2018 – )
School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, UK
Associate Fellow (Dec 2017 – )
The Higher Education Academy, UK
Reader (September 2015 – July 2018)
School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, UK
Chair, Advisory Board (March 2014 – December 2018)
Blue Skies Department, IEEE Cloud Computing
Honorary Associate Professor [Level D] (October 15, 2016 – )
Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University
Visiting Scientist (September 2015 – August 2018)
Data61 (previously Digital Productivity Flagship), CSIRO
Julius Fellow (July 2013 – August 2015)
Office of Chief Executive (OCE), CSIRO
Senior Research Scientist [CSOF 6] (July 2013 – August 2015)
Digital Productivity and Services Flagship, CSIRO
Adjunct Senior Lecturer [Level C] (October 15, 2011 – )
School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales
Adjunct Honorary Fellow [Level B] (January 2014 -)
Department of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne
Publication Highlights
His papers have appeared at selective, highly reputed (as per CORE/ERA Ranking) venues including ACM Computing Surveys (ERA A*, SCI Impact Factor 6.7), IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (ERA A*), IEEE Transactions on Computers (ERA A*), Journal of Computer and System Sciences (ERA A*), ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (ERA A*), IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, IEEE Transactions on Service Computing, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics (SCI Impact Factor 6.7), IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Computing, IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing (SCI Impact Factor 3.8), IEEE Cloud Computing, IEEE Internet Computing (ERA A), IEEE Computer (ERA A), IEEE Systems, Future Generation Computer Systems (ERA A), IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (#1 Computer Science and Electronics based on its SCI impact factor – 17.18), Journal of Computer Networks and Applications (JNCA), Journal of Software Practice and Experience (ERA A), and Journal of Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience (ERA A).
In his field, fully refereed conference publications are also highly valued. Some conferences have acceptance rates below 20%, and many seminal works in his area are published in conference proceedings. In this context, his papers have also appeared in top international conferences including IEEE/ACM International World Wide Web (WWW, CORE A*) Conference, IEEE International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP, CORE A), International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB, CORE A*), IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS, CORE A), IEEE International Conference on Services Computing (SCC, CORE A), Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS, CORE A) and IEEE/ACM International Conference on Cluster, Cloud, and Grid Computing (CCGRID, CORE A), and ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM, CORE A).
Citation Highlights
h-index = 69, i10-index = 229, Total Citations = 25000+ (Source – Google Scholar Profile as on 30/11/2022)
h-index = 53, Total Citations = 14000+ (Source – Scopus Profile on 30/11/2022)
h-index = 45, Total Citations = 10000+ (Source – Web of Science Profile, as on 30/11/2022)
My View on Cloud Computing, Big Data, IoT, and Next Generation Distributed Systems 