Prakash Narayan

Prakash Narayan is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a joint appointment at the Institute for Systems Research. He holds a B.Tech from IIT Madras (1976), and M.S. and D.Sc. from Washington University (1978-1981). His research focuses on multiuser information theory, communication networks, and information theoretic security. He has held visiting positions at ETH Zurich, Technion, and the Alfréd Rényi Institute. Dr. Narayan serves on the Board of Governors of the IEEE Information Theory Society and has held editorial roles for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. He is an IEEE Fellow and recipient of the NSF Research Initiation Award (1982).

• Affiliations: Maryland Hybrid Networks Center (NASA Commercial Space Center), Institute for Systems Research
• Key Roles: Technical Program Chair (ISIT 2001), Co-Founder of Hybrid Networks Center

Research interests include network secret key generation, secure function computation, and thermal profile estimation in multicore processors. Recent projects explore RF-FSO hybrid communication systems and sampling-quantization tradeoffs. His work has applications in smart home networks, satellite imaging, and drone swarm communication protocols.

• Notable Awards: IEEE Fellow (2001), NSF Research Initiation Award (1982)
• Grants: NSF-funded research on information-theoretic signal processing

Advises students like Himanshu Tyagi (now Associate Professor at IISc) and Sagnik Bhattacharya. Active in mentoring through programs like Future Faculty Fellowships. Collaborates with international institutions and maintains strong ties with academic networks globally.