Naren Ramakrishnan

Naren Ramakrishnan is the Thomas L. Phillips Professor of Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech, where he directs the Sanghani Center for AI and Data Analytics. He also serves as AI and Machine Learning Lead for the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus. His research spans data science, machine learning, urban analytics, forecasting, and computational epidemiology.

Recent publications (2024-2025) focus on language model optimization, AI applications in government and environmental conservation, and spatiotemporal data analysis. Work demonstrates strong emphasis on real-world AI deployments in regulatory compliance, supply chain verification, and network optimization. Methodological innovations include prompt engineering techniques, world models for reinforcement learning, and specialized embedding methods.

Dr. Ramakrishnan has received prestigious fellowships from ACM, AAAS, and IEEE. His research has been supported by numerous agencies including DARPA, NSF, NIH, and industry partners like Amazon and Boeing, with 36 PhD students mentored to completion.