Balaji Srinivasan obtained his Ph.D. in 2000 from the University of New Mexico, USA. He subsequently worked as a Senior Development Scientist at Corning Incorporated, USA, where he led technology development efforts related to 3D Optical Cross-connects and Channel Selectable Tunable Filters. Since 2004 he has been with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras as a faculty in the Department of Electrical Engineering, presently as Professor.

Balaji’s research interests span the development of active and passive optical components / subsystems for distributed fiber optic sensors and fiber lasers. Balaji has co-authored more than 230 journal and international conference publications, as well as 4 book chapters. He also has 23 patents to his credit (3 more pending). He has successfully executed or currently investigating over 40 research projects, resulting in the development of 8 technologies, 6 of which have been transferred to industry for commercialization.

Balaji has served in the Editorial Board of the prestigious Optics Express journal, and is one of the Directors of Folium Sensing Pvt Ltd, a distributed fiber sensor company incubated by IIT Madras. He has previously served as Member of the Photonics Working Group of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITy), Government of India, Steering Committee of the National Photonics Fellowship, the Editorial Board of the Springer Photonic Network Communications Journal, and as a Chair for the 2012 International Conference on Fiber Optics and Photonics. For his professional accomplishments, he has been awarded Senior Membership in Optica.