Pravin Varaiya is Nortel Networks Distinguished Professor in the Department of
Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1963 also from Berkeley.

He has worked in the areas of Control

Control theory

Control theory is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and mathematics that deals with the behavior of dynamical systems. The desired output of a system is called the reference...

, Communication Networks

Telecommunications network

A telecommunications network is a collection of terminals, links and nodes which connect together to enable telecommunication between users of the terminals. Networks may use circuit switching or message switching. Each terminal in the network must have a unique address so messages or connections...

, and Transportation Systems

Transportation planning

Transportation planning is a field involved with the evaluation, assessment, design and siting of transportation facilities .-Models and Sustainability :...

. He is the author of “High-Performance Communication Networks” (with Jean Walrand and Andrea Goldsmith) (2d edn., Morgan-Kaufmann, 2000).

In 1980 Varaiya became Fellow

IEEE Fellow

An IEEE member is elevated to the grade of IEEE Fellow for "unusual distinction in the profession and shall be conferred by the Board of Directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest"...

 of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...

 (IEEE), in 1999 he was elected to member of the National Academy of Engineering

National Academy of Engineering

The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...

, and in 2006 he became Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

. In 2002 he received the IEEE Control Systems Award

IEEE Control Systems Award

The IEEE Control Systems Award is a technical field award given to an individual by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers "for outstanding contributions to control systems engineering, science or technology"...

, "for outstanding contributions to stochastic and adaptive control and the unification of concepts from control and computer science". And in 2008 he received the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award

Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award

The Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award is an annual award given by the American Automatic Control Council for achievements in control theory, named after the applied mathematician Richard E. Bellman...

 from the American Automatic Control Council

American Automatic Control Council

The American Automatic Control Council is an organization founded in 1956 for research in control theory. It is an association of the control systems divisions of eight member societies and a member of the International Federation of Automatic Control....

, "for pioneering contributions to stochastic control, hybrid systems and the unification of theories of control and computation".