Naren Ramakrishnan honored as University Distinguished Professor

Naren Ramakrishnan, the Thomas L. Phillips Professor in the Department of Computer Science, is a highly accomplished academic and researcher specializing in recommender systems, forecasting, data science, computational epidemiology, and urban analytics. His career has been defined by a combination of groundbreaking research, significant leadership roles, and impactful collaborations across academia, government, and industry. 

Ramakrishnan was elevated to the rank of University Distinguished Professor on April 14 by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors and joins 17 active University Distinguished Professors across Virginia Tech whose scholarly work has earned significant national or international recognition. 

One notable example of his work is EMBERS, a forecasting project sponsored by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity that deployed a live 24/7 system to anticipate disease outbreaks, civil unrest, and election outcomes across multiple countries using open source data such as news, blogs, social media posts, food prices, network traffic, satellite imagery, atmospheric variables, and other indicators.

EMBERS helped pioneer the use of nontraditional data sources for machine learning. Ramakrishnan and his collaborators showed how signals such as hospital parking lot fill rates from satellite images, absenteeism in social media, and restaurant reservation data could provide early clues about disease activity and broader patterns of human behavior. These ideas were initially seen as a tad futuristic but became mainstream supplementary indicators, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In 2025, EMBERS received the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining's “Test of Time” Award, which celebrates the lasting impact of a paper published at its conference over the past decade. 

“Dr. Ramakrishnan’s expertise and leadership in AI and machine learning places Virginia Tech at the forefront of this rapidly evolving field,” said Virginia Tech President Tim Sands. “His continuing work will help us anticipate change, develop informed policies, and prepare for the transformational impact of this technology on our society.”

Across Ramakrishnan’s research, a recurring theme has been the use of data to better understand human behavior, public health, and societal change at population scale. His work has contributed to both the methods available for studying these phenomena and understanding of the ethical and societal issues involved.

“Naren’s work is redefining how we use data to understand and forecast the world around us,” said David Knight, interim dean of the College of Engineering. "He has truly excelled in integrating all aspects of Virginia Tech’s mission. When we think about what it means to live out Ut Prosim as a faculty member with expertise and passion to make the world better, Naren is the perfect example for the rest of the college and the university community.”

Ramakrishnan is founding director of the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics and lead for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for the Institute for Advanced Computing.

In Northern Virginia, he has led the creation of several interdisciplinary initiatives such as the National Science Foundation-funded urban computing graduate certificate program that trains students in the use of data science and machine learning to study urban populations.

Ramakrishnan also launched the Amazon-Virginia Tech Initiative for Efficient and Robust Machine Learning, a partnership that supports machine learning-focused research projects, doctoral student fellowships, community outreach, and an establishment of a shared advisory board. Connecting Virginia Tech faculty members with Amazon researchers provides access to problems, datasets and compute resources, opening venues for faculty members to address worldwide industry-focused problems.

He also helped create — and co-leads with Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC — an AI in pediatric health partnership with Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., that has provided seed funding for projects in areas such as predicting treatments for pediatric developmental disorders, anticipating emergency department surges, and improving accuracy in identifying rare genetic syndromes in children. 

“I am very honored to receive this distinction from Virginia Tech, which affords me an outstanding environment to pursue projects that can have real impact, even when they take years to come to fruition,” said Ramakrishnan. “I am grateful to the university leadership for fostering many of the collaborative partnerships we have built in AI and data science. My students and colleagues are a constant source of ideas and perspective, and they continually inspire me.”

Ramakrishnan is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. He has served on the Governor’s AI Task Force and co-chaired the 2025 Virginia Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine's Summit on AI.

He earned a master’s degree from Anna University in India and a Ph.D. in computer sciences from Purdue University.