Clarkson University President Tony Collins has announced that Mahesh Banavar has been granted tenure and promoted from assistant professor to associate professor of electrical & computer engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter School of Engineering.
Dr. Banavar is working on several research projects related to signal processing and machine learning applications. One study involves utilizing behavioral biometrics to identify a user on a computer system by how they interact with their devices rather than through passwords, fingerprints or retina/face recognition. He is looking to identify legitimate users and block unauthorized users based on typing behavior on keyboards and by collecting touch/swipe/gesture data on mobile devices. The study is a collaborative effort with professors Daqing Hou, Ph.D., Director of Software Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Stephanie Schuckers, Ph.D., Paynter-Krigman Endowed Professor in Engineering Science in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. It is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Center for Identification Technology Research (CITeR) and Facebook.
Another research thrust is in the area of localization in GPS-denied environments, and specifically in crowded indoor environments, where signals are corrupted by scattering and interference. Dr. Banavar is developing algorithms that will work with noisy and incomplete data. The algorithms can also be applied to estimating the sources of atrial fibrillation in human hearts, growth rates of forest fires and the wave propagation speed of tsunamis. Additionally, Dr. Banavar is researching methods to better deliver STEM content at the K-12 level, and advanced signal processing and machine learning content in undergraduate classes.
Dr. Banavar has over 80 publications in journals, peer-reviewed conferences, and books and holds four patents. He has received close to $1 million in external funding from federal and state funding agencies, and industry. Dr. Banavar received the Outstanding Teaching Award from the Eta Kappa Nu Clarkson University Chapter in 2016, and the Clarkson University Outstanding Advisor Award in 2019. He serves as an Area Editor for the Physical Communication (PHYCOM) journal. He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) Honor Society, and MENSA.
He received his bachelor of engineering degree in telecommunications engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, India, and both his master of science and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Arizona State University.
A native of Bangalore, India, Dr. Banavar joined Clarkson in 2014 after serving as an assistant research professor at Arizona State University.
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