I came to the United States in 1988 after obtaining my B.Tech. degree (Hons.) from Jadavpur University, India in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering. Jadavpur is a premier engineering university in the country. I started graduate studies at the School of Computer Science, University of Central Florida in Orlando. The school was a center for excellence in computer science research and I was put in a Navy research project. I worked as a research scientist at the Institute for Simulation & Training in Orlando during the years 1988 to 1990, developing the Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) project in collaboration with DARPA. My job was to develop simulation models for battle-field networking. DIS has since grown into a DoD standard. This was also when my interests on networking sparked.
I joined Prof. Mostafa Bassiouni’s network group and started developing algorithms for integrated voice and data networking. I received my M.S. in 1991 and continued towards doctoral study. At a conference in San Diego in 1991, I was introduced to a then new emerging technology called ATM. I went on to obtain a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida in 1994. In my thesis, I developed congestion control and scheduling techniques for high-speed ATM networks that could provide guarantees to multimedia applications.
In 1994, I was hired by Georgia State University as an Assistant Professor in the Computer Information Systems department in Atlanta. This was the first time I was in a business school environment. It took a year or so to adjust since everyone around wore suites while I was used to Profs wearing T-shirts and shorts. Anyway I quickly adjusted and began my tenure at GSU. My primary responsibility was to obtain research funding and create a top-notch Telecom program. With the help of some colleagues, I was able to secure a large $1.15 million grant to establish a Center for Digital Commerce. That center is now called E-Commerce Institute and has recently successfully launched the GEM (Global E-Commerce MBA) program. In 1996, I also started working at the Broadband Telecommunications Center which was a joint research center between Georgia Tech, GSU and UGA. It was during this time that I worked with Dr. John Limb who later went onto create his startup called Digital Furnace that was later acquired by Broadcom. John ended up to be a wealthy person. Too bad, I did not go. At the BTC, my research on the performance of HFC networks and the economic modeling of access networks received a lot of attention. During this time I was successful in securing NSF grants for a VBNS extension to GSU and also got involved with the Internet-2 project. The Telecom program became nationally known and several of my students are working for top networking companies. In 2000, I received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor.
February of 2000 became a turning point in my life. From being a total academic, I plunged into entrepreneurship and co-founded my own startup VoiceCore Technologies Inc. The next 18 months were incredible times for me as I wrote business plan, secured seed funding for the company from angel investors and started smooching with venture capitalists (VCs) both in Atlanta and nationwide. We hired developers and soon VoiceCore was of and running deep into product development. We were one of the first companies to develop SIP-based advanced telephony and video-conferencing applications on the net. An end-to-end Quality-of-Service bandwidth broker was also being designed.
Currently I am fascinated with the Internet and its impact on our daily lives. In the past, my research work has been on ATM scheduling systems, efficient routing protocols, TCP/IP performance over HFC cable networks and all-optical networking. Currently I am exploring fundamental challenges in QOS, Voice over IP, real-time protocols and secured PKI infrastructures. I am particularly concerned with long-term solutions for Internet routing, scalability and end-to-end QOS techniques.
During the last several years I have been a consultant to top Telecommunications companies like BellSouth.net, Lucent, Cisco, Cabletron Systems, Fore Systems, MediaOne/AT&T, Bank of America and Hitachi Telecom. I helped design BellSouth Next Generation Data network. I was the local organizing chair for ICNP’97 and ENCOM-98 conference. I served on the program committee for Globecom’99 conference where he was a member in the TPC for Access Networks and Enterprise Services & Applications Symposiums. I was the panel chair on “Voice over IP” at the Supercom 2001 June meeting held in Atlanta. I have given over 150 presentations and seminars at various International forums, tutorials and technical talks to industry and academic conferences. I also served as an expert on the Computer Science and Technology Board panel under National Research Council.
I am a member of ACM, IEEE, and IEEE Communications Society. I have published a number of journal and conference papers. I am a member of the SIP working group and IPAC WG within IETF. I am on the program committee for EntNet in IEEE.
Since July of 2001, I have moved to Claremont Graduate University here in California and embark upon a new academic and entrepreneurial career. Email is my preferred medium of communications and I can be reached at samir.chatterjee@cgu.edu.