Dr. P. Pandurang Nayak
B. Tech., 1985, Computer Science and Engineering

Dr. P. Pandurang Nayak is a Google Fellow and Vice President of Search at Google. Dr. Nayak earned his B. Tech. degree (awarded President of India Gold Medal) in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1985 and Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1992. His Ph.D. dissertation was an ACM Distinguished Dissertation.

Dr. Nayak started his career as a Research Scientist in 1992 in the Computational Sciences Division of the NASA Ames Research Center and Deputy Lead of the Remote Agent project – the first artificial intelligence system to be given primary control of a spacecraft. The Remote Agent developed by him has won the ‘NASA Software of the Year Award’ in 1999.

Later, he worked as the Chief Architect and then Chief Technical Officer (CTO) of Stratify Inc. during 1999-2004.

Dr. Nayak joined Google Inc. in 2004 and is a Member of Technical Staff. He is working on Google Search, using data, information retrieval techniques and machine learning to help deliver relevant, high-quality search results to billions of people around the world.

Special Memories

My overriding memory of IIT Bombay is that of hanging out with friends, forming close bonds that have held tight through all these years. Playing chess was also memorable, particularly a trip to Nagpur for a national inter-collegiate tournament. And, of course, I have lots of special memories of great faculty that emphasized the fundamentals (“fundas”) of their subjects”.