Hall of Fame Member Biographies

Sivaramakrishnan Lakshmivarahan

Earning his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Madras in 1964, Sivaramakrishnan Lakshmivarahan completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India in 1973.  After serving as an assistant professor at the Indian Institute Technology, Madras, India, and as a visiting assistant professor at Brown University and Yale University, he joined the University of Oklahoma in 1978.  There he has blazed an incomparable trail of scholarship and teaching in computer science.  His four major areas of contribution have been learning algorithms, parallel and distributed processing, dynamic data assimilation, and computational sciences and finance.    He has directed over 40 Master’s and over 30 Ph.D. degrees, and has been ranked an outstanding teacher each year for the past twenty-one years. The University of Oklahoma has acknowledged his superiority in teaching by awarding Dr. Lakshmivarahan the Halliburton Distinguished Lecturer in 1984-86, the Associates Distinguished Lecturer in 1986-1987, College of Engineering Distinguished Lecturer during 1987-92 and the Regents Award for Superior Teaching in 1991.  In the OU College of Engineering, he earned the Alumni Teaching award for five consecutive semesters - spring and fall 2007, spring and fall 2008, and spring 2009.  His research and publication record is truly outstanding. Within a short span of four years after he joined OU, he received the Regents award for Superior Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity in 1982. In the thirty-six years he has been at the University of Oklahoma, he has authored/coauthored six books, published seventy-two archival journal papers and has presented at 114 international/national conferences.  He has obtained grants totaling several million dollars over his career, been the keynote speaker at five international conferences, and has given seventy-eight colloquium talks and has offered over thirty short courses at major centers of higher learning in Canada, China, England, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Taiwan and USA.  For these accomplishments he was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 1993 and a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1995.  His recent 2006 book has received the 2007 Outstanding Scientific Paper award by the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.  Recognizing his overall contributions to teaching, research and service, the University of Oklahoma bestowed on him its highest honor by naming Dr. Lakshmivarahan a George Lynn Cross Research Professor.  The Oklahoma Higher Education Heritage Society is honored to greet Dr. Lakshmivarahan as a member of the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame.