iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
Georgia Tech Regents’ Professor Srinivas Aluru has been named the recipient of the prestigious Charles Babbage Award for 2025. Aluru is being recognized for his groundbreaking research at the intersection of parallel computing and computational biology.
“This is a very well-deserved recognition for Srinivas as he joins the illustrious list of past recipients of the Charles Babbage Award,” said Vivek Sarkar, the John P. Imlay Jr. Dean of the College of Computing.
“Srinivas’ accomplishments reflect positively on himself and all of us at Georgia Tech. This is indeed an occasion to celebrate.”
The IEEE Computer Society annually presents the Babbage Award to individuals who have made significant contributions to parallel computation. Named after Charles Babbage, widely regarded as the “father of the computer,” the award honors those who advance the field of computing. Babbage, alongside Ada Lovelace, is credited with inventing the first mechanical computers in the 19th century, which laid the foundation for more complex systems.
“This award is a recognition of over two and a half decades of research efforts in my group, reflecting not only my work but that of numerous graduate students and collaborators,” said Aluru. “I hope the award draws attention to the importance of parallel methods in computational biology and points key advancements to new entrants in the field.”
Indian-origin Aluru is a pioneer in computational genomics. His work focuses on analyzing the order, structure, function, and evolution of genetic material. Over the course of his career, his lab has developed software and algorithms to study the genomes of various species, ranging from plants and animals to microorganisms.
Genomic datasets, often composed of billions of base pairs, present significant computational challenges. Aluru recognized early on that parallel computing could be a powerful tool to tackle these large-scale datasets. By dividing a problem into smaller tasks, parallelism allows multiple processors to work simultaneously, making it possible to efficiently analyze and transcribe genetic data, ultimately revealing important patterns in the genome.
“Srinivas Aluru’s groundbreaking contributions have profoundly shaped the intersection of parallel processing and bioinformatics. His work is nothing short of extraordinary,” said Yves Robert, awards chair of the IEEE Computer Society Babbage Committee.
“It is a privilege to recognize a researcher whose work will undoubtedly have a lasting impact for generations to come.”
In 2010, Aluru was named an IEEE Fellow, and he recently completed his term as the editor-in-chief of IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics.
Aluru holds fellowships with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. He has been honored with several prestigious awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, the IBM Faculty Award, and the Swarnajayanti Fellowship from the Government of India.
In addition to receiving the Babbage Award, Aluru’s leadership skills earned him a recent appointment as senior associate dean of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech.
In 2016, Aluru played a pivotal role in establishing the Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS) at Georgia Tech, serving as co-executive director. He later became the institute’s sole executive director from 2019 to 2025, before stepping down to accept his new associate dean position. Regents’ Professor C. David Sherrill has since taken on the role of interim executive director.
Aluru joined Georgia Tech in 2013 to be part of the newly formed School of Computational Science and Engineering, established in 2010. He served as interim chair of the school from 2019 to 2020. In 2023, Aluru was appointed as a Regents’ Professor by the University System of Georgia.
He earned his Ph.D. from Iowa State University in 1994. Following this, Aluru held positions at Ames National Laboratory, Syracuse University, and New Mexico State University before returning to his alma mater from 1999 to 2013.
(Photo courtesy: www.cc.gatech.edu)
