S. S. Iyengar

Learn more about Dr. Iyengar research at Research Commercialization and Impact

Dr. S.S. Iyengar is currently the Distinguished University Professor, Ryder Professor of Computer Science and a former Director of the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University (FIU), Miami. He is also the founding director of the Discovery Lab. Prior to joining FIU, Dr. Iyengar was the Roy Paul Daniel’s Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Computer Science department for over 20 years at Lousiana State University. He has also worked as a visiting scientist at Oak Ridge National Lab, Jet Propulsion Lab, Satish Dhawan Professor at IISc and Homi Bhabha Professor at IGCAR, Kalpakkam and University of Paris and visited Tsinghua University, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) etc. His research interests include High-Performance Algorithms, Biomedical Computing, Sensor Fusion, and Intelligent Systems for the last four decades. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Multi-University Research Initiative (MURI Program), Office of Naval Research (ONR), Department of Energy / Oak Ridge National Laboratory (DOE/ORNL), Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), US Army Research Office (URO), and various state agencies and companies. He has served on the US National Science Foundation and National Institute of Health Panels to review proposals in various aspects of Computational Science and has been involved as an external evaluator (ABET-accreditation) for several Computer Science and Engineering Departments across the country and the world. Dr. Iyengar has also served as a research proposal evaluator for the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Iyengar is developing computational measures for predicting DNA mutations during cancer evolution, using wavelet analysis in cancer genome research, and designing smart biomarkers for bioremediation.  His inventions have significantly impacted biomedical engineering and medicine. He recently patented a simple, low-cost device for early intervention in glaucoma, and was involved in early detection of lung cancer by developing a 4D motion model jointly with Southwestern Medical School.

Dr. Iyengar is a Member of the European Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a Fellow of the Society for Design and Process Science (SDPS), a Fellow of National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Dr. Iyengar has been the Chair for many IEEE conferences in the area of Sensor Networks, Computational Biology, Image processing, etc. He is also the founding editor of the International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, and he has been on the Editorial Board of many IEEE Journals including Transaction on Computers, Transactions and Data Knowledge Engineering, ACM Computing Surveys etc. Dr. Iyengar continues to be very active in multiple professional conferences and workshops in the areas of his research interest.

He was awarded Satish Dhawan Chaired Professorship at IISc, then Roy Paul Daniel Professorship at LSU. He has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Science. In 1998, he was awarded the IEEE Computer Society’s Technical Achievement award and is an IEEE Golden Core Member. He also received a Lifetime Achievement award conferred by International Conference on Agile manufacturing at IIT-BHU. Professor Iyengar is an IEEE Distinguished Visitor, SIAM Distinguished Lecturer, and ACM National Lecturer and has won many other awards like Distinguished Research Master’s award, Hub Cotton award of Faculty Excellence (LSU), Rain Maker awards (LSU), Florida Information Technology award (IT2), Distinguished Research award from Tunisian Mathematical Society etc. Dr. Iyengar was honored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Cybermatics Congress in Atlanta, Georgia, where he received the Outstanding Research Award known as the “Test of Time Award” for his work in creating the Brooks-Iyengar Algorithm (2019).

During the last four decades, he has supervised over 55 Ph.D. students, 100 Master’s students, and many undergraduate students who are now faculty at Major Universities worldwide or Scientists or Engineers at National Labs/Industries around the world. He has published more than 500 research papers, has authored/co-authored and edited 22 books. His books are published by MIT Press, John Wiley, and Sons, CRC Press, Prentice-Hall, Springer Verlag, IEEE Computer Society Press, etc. One of his books titled “Introduction to Parallel Algorithms” has been translated to Chinese. During the last thirty years, Dr. Iyengar has brought in over 65 million dollars for research and education. He has been providing the students and faculty with a vision for active learning and collaboration at Louisiana State University, Florida International University, and across many Universities in China and India. He has received many outstanding Journal and Conference Paper awards with his students.

Read more about Dr. Iyengar research at Research Commercialization and Impact/Awards

In 2006, his paper entitled, A Fast Parallel Thinning Algorithm for the Binary Image Skeletonization, was the most frequently read article in the month of January in the International Journal of High-Performance Computing Applications. His innovative work called the Brooks-Iyengar algorithm along with Prof. Richard Brooks from Clemson University is applied in industries to solve real-world applications. Dr. Iyengar’s work has a big impact; in 1988. We discovered “NC algorithms for Recognizing Chordal Graphs and K-trees” [IEEE Trans. on Computers 1988]. This breakthrough result led to the extension of designing fast parallel algorithms by researchers like J.Naor (Stanford), M.Naor (Berkeley), and A.A.Schaffer (AT&T Bell Labs). Professor Iyengar earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees at UVCE-Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and a doctoral degree from Mississippi State University. Recently, Dr. Iyengar was awarded the IBM Faculty Award, FIU Top Scholar award, and NRI Gandhi Pravasi Award in London, along with a Medal Of Honor.