Rajiv and Ritu Batra Endowed Chair for Cyber Security

Mr. Batra is a Founder of Palo Alto Networks and was responsible for building and leading the engineering department from inception. At Palo Alto Networks he held many positions including Founder, Member Office of CEO and Senior Vice President of Engineering. Palo Alto Networks is the largest independent enterprise security company in the world. Prior to founding Palo Alto, Mr. Batra was the Vice President of Engineering at Peribit Networks. Peribit Networks built industry leading products in the area of WAN Optimization and WAN Acceleration. It was acquired by Juniper Networks in July of 2005. Dr. Batra was also the Founder and VP of Engineering at VitalSigns Networks that was later acquired by International Network Services in 1998.

Mr. Batra was awarded the 2012 Entrepreneurial Achievement Award by University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a chair of the Board of Visitors of Computer Science Department at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Board Member of University of Wisconsin Foundation and a Trustee of Honolulu Museum of Art.Mr. Batra holds MS degree in Computer Sciences from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1983. IITK conferred upon Dr. Rajiv Batra the Distinguished Alumnus Award 2020




Current Occupant


Prof. Sandeep Shukla

June 2023-June 2026

Prof. Sandeep Kumar Shukla is the professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at IIT Kanpur. He is the Program Director of Cyber Security Technology Innovation Hub (C3i Hub) and Joint Coordinator of Center for Cyber Security and Cyber Defense of Critical Infrastructures and National Blockchain Project. Prof. Shukla specialises in the areas of Formal Methods, Formal Verification, Model Driven Engineering, Software Synthesis, Software and Hardware Design, Embedded Systems. His research areas include Cyber Security, Embedded Systems, Critical Infrastructures, Formal Methods, Embedded Software and Hardware Design, System Level Languages, Smart Grid, Smart Infrastructures. He is a IEEE Fellow (2014), ACM Distinguished Scientist (2013) and recipients of many awards such as Humboldt Bessel Award (2008), Distinguished Alumni Award in Science and Technology, State University of New York, Albany, June (2007), GTE Labs Excellence Award (1998), National Science Foundation CAREER Award, (2002), B.C. Roy Gold Medal for First Position among All Engineering Bachelor's Program, Jadavpur University (1992). He graduated from Jadavpur University in Computer science in 1991 and Master of Science from State University of NewYork, Albany.
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