Remembering
Rajeev Motwani, 1962-2009
IIT
Kanpur
deeply mourns the tragic and untimely demise of one of its most
illustrious
alumni: Rajeev Motwani. Rajeev did BTech in Computer Science and
Engineering in
1983 from IIT Kanpur, after which he went to the University of
California,
Berkeley to do his PhD which he completed in 1988 under the supervision
of
Professor Richard Karp. Rajeev then joined the faculty of the
department of
Computer Science at Stanford University. Rajeev was
a brilliant researcher who made fundamental contributions to many
areas:
randomized algorithms, computational complexity, approximation
algorithms, data
mining, mathematical modelling of the world-wide web etc. Rajeev was
one of the
group of five researchers who gave the world the PCP theorem, one of
the most
stunningly beautiful and immensely deep results of the modern era. It
is this
contribution for which Rajeev was awarded the prestigious Godel Prize
in 2001.
Rajeev was a great teacher too; he has co-authored two books, one on
randomized
algorithms and another on theory of computation which have taught these
two
subjects to students all over the world. Those in
IIT Kanpur who knew Rajeev as an undergraduate, remember him not only
for his
academic brilliance but also for the good cheer that he always exuded.
He was a
very friendly person, and remained so all through his life. His office
door at
Stanford was ever open – to students, to young entrepreneurs, to
academicians
from all across the world, and to his friends from IIT Kanpur. Rajeev
was also closely
involved with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT
Kanpur
as a mentor in its research program. He was on the board of Research I
Foundation of the department since 2003. Rajeev
possessed the rare genius of using the most abstract of theories to
solve
practical problems impacting society at large. For example, he made use
of his
expertise in randomized algorithms in building a drug design system for
Pfizer.
Rajeev was an early “unofficial mentor” of Google founders Sergei Brin
and
Larry Page. He helped them through the initial years when the basic
page
ranking algorithms were implemented and continued hand-holding the
young
company when they went in search of venture capitalists. Google
founder, Brin,
described Rajeev as his “friend and teacher” and said that “... his
legacy and
personality lives on in the students, projects, and companies he has
touched.
Today, whenever you use a piece of technology, there is a good chance a
little
bit of Rajeev Motwani is behind it.” |
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