Profile

Venkat Venkatakrishnan is the Director of Research for the Discovery Partners Institute. In his role as lead scientist at DPI, Venkat works with faculty and leadership across the University of Illinois System campuses and partners in building DPI’s R&D portfolio. Venkat is the lead principal investigator  and Director of DPI's science team program supported by the US Economic Development Administration, that , over the past three years,  have brought over 100 million in funding to the University of Illinois System and DPI partners.  

Venkat is a computer scientist by training and background has led multi-disciplinary teams in cybersecurity and privacy, digital healthcare, clean transportation and privacy issues. He has published dozens of influential papers (including five award-winning papers), holds several patents, has served on scientific advisory boards and review panels for private companies and nonprofits, government agencies and academic departments. 

Venkat holds a Ph.D. from Stony Brook University and  an undergraduate degree from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani in India.  Venkat received the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award in 2009, and was named University of Illinois Scholar in 2017, and a University of Illinois Presidential Executive Leadership Fellow in 2019.