Ratul Mahajan <ratul [at] microsoft [dot] com> (425) 707 0706

Recent projects

• HomeOS: Enabling smarter homes for everyone
• NetMedic: Detailed and understandable network diagnosis
• VanLan: Cheap and reliable mobile connectivity
• Measurement-based models of wireless networks

Recent papers [Complete list | Organized by topic ]

• High Performance Vehicular Connectivity using Opportunistic Erasure Conding
  Ratul Mahajan, Jitendra Padhye, Sharad Agarwal, Brian Zill
  Usenix ATC 2012
• An Operating System for the Home
  Colin Dixon, Ratul Mahajan, Sharad Agarwal, AJ Brush, Bongshin Lee, Stefan Saroiu, Paramvir Bahl
  NSDI 2012
• Latency Inflation with MPLS based Traffic Engineering
  Abhinav Pathak, Ming Zhang, Y. Charlie Hu, Ratul Mahajan, Dave Maltz
  IMC 2011
• Finding Protocol Manipulation Attacks
  Nupur Kothari, Ratul Mahajan, Todd Millstein, Ramesh Govindan, and Madan Musuvathi
  SIGCOMM 2011
• Human-Guided Machine Learning for Fast and Accurate Network Alarm Triage
  Saleema Amershi, Bongshin Lee, Ashish Kapoor, Ratul Mahajan, and Blaine Christian
  IJCAI 2011 [Best Papers Track]
• Advancing the State of Home Networking
  Keith Edwards, Rebecca Grinter, Ratul Mahajan, and David Wetherall
  CACM, June 2011
• SystemSens: A Tool for Monitoring Usage in Smartphone Research Deployments
  Hossein Falaki, Ratul Mahajan, and Deborah Estrin
  MobiArch 2011
• Home Automation in the Wild: Challenges and Opportunities
  A.J. Brush, Bongshin Lee, Ratul Mahajan, Sharad Agarwal, Stefan Saroiu, and Colin Dixon
  CHI 2011
• CueT: Human-Guided Fast and Accurate Network Alarm Triage
  Saleema Amershi, Bongshin Lee, Ashish Kapoor, Ratul Mahajan, and Blaine Christian
  CHI 2011 [Honorable Mention Award]

Recent (non-conference) talks [More talks]

• Towards commodity smarthomes
  Duke University, Nov 2011
  ETH, Zurich, Nov 2011
  MPI-SWS, Saarbrucken, Germany, Nov 2011
• View the home as a computer
  Panel at IEEE CCW, Oct 2011
• HNI: Human network interaction
  dub seminar, University of Washington, Aug 2011
• Beyond the super-rich and the super-geeks: Smart homes for the rest of us
  Panel at SIGCOMM workshop on Home Networks (HomeNets), Sep 2010
• Smartphone energy considerations for browser design
  Invited talk at Universal Parallel Computing Research Center (UPCRC) summit, Aug 2010
• Pushing networking research to layer human
  2020 Networking Summit, June 2010
• Augmenting Mobile 3G using WiFi
  University of Washington, May 2010

Teaching

• CSE 481M: Home Networking Capstone, Spring 2011
• CSEP 561: Network Systems, Fall 2008

Professional activities

• PC chair: IMC 2012, MobiArch 2011, HotNets 2009 , NetEcon+IBC 2007
• PC member:
  • 2012: SIGCOMM, IMC,
  • 2011: SIGCOMM, NSDI, IMC, MobiArch HomeNets,
  • 2010: SIGMETRICS, IMC, CoNext, HotNets-IX, HomeNets, MobiArch
  • 2009: SIGCOMM, IMC, ICNP, HotNets-VIII , COMSNETS, NetEcon, NetDB, HotAC, WinMee
  • 2008: SIGCOMM, INFOCOM, NetEcon, ROADS, Global Internet
  • 2007: PAM, NetEcon, SIGCOMM posters
  • 2006: SIGCOMM, HotNets-V, NetEcon
• Organizer: UW MSR Summer Institute 2009 on "Unraveling the technological knot in homes"
• Area editor: MC2R [2008-2011]
• Local chair: SIGCOMM 2008]

Selected press coverage

• Marrying 3G with WiFi makes sense [Business Standard]
• Researchers test WiFi access from moving vehicles [Slashdot]
• Tuning Smartphone Performance [MSR]
• Microsoft Wiffler lets smartphones use free WiFi from moving vehicles [Network World]
• Improving phones through surveillance [Technology Review]
• Microsoft's HomeStore: Home automation, with an iPhone-inspired twist [ZDNet]
• Using Wi-Fi to Boost 3G Capacity [MSR]
• Software Notebook: Microsoft test-driving Wi-Fi use in vehicles [Seattle PI]
• Plan rolling to improve vehicle-based Wi-Fi nets [Network World]
• Prepare for truly mobile WiFi [Discover Magazine]

Short bio
Ratul Mahajan is a Researcher at Microsoft Research. His research interests include all aspects of networked systems, especially their architecture and design. His work spans Internet routing and measurements, incentive-compatible protocol design, practical models for wireless networks, and vehicular networks. He has published over 30 papers in top-tier venues such as SIGCOMM, SOSP, NSDI, MobiCom, and MobiSys. He is a winner of the ACM SIGCOMM Rising Star award, the William R. Bennett prize, the SIGCOMM best paper award, and Microsoft Research Graduate Fellowship. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Washington (2005) and B.Tech. from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (1999).