Dr G Athithan
Dr. G Athithan, Distinguished Scientist has been appointed as Director General – Micro Electronic Devices & Computational Systems (MED & CoS) wef 01 June 2016. He was born on 30th October 1958. He received his B.E. (Hons) degree in Electronics and Communications in 1981 from Madras University. He received his Ph.D. degree in Physics (Neural Networks) in 1997 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. After receiving his B.E., he was a trainee in Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay for a year. In August 1982 he joined the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam. He worked in IGCAR for six years on computer graphics, computer aided design, and modeling of Penrose patterns and crystal structures.
In October 1988 he joined the Advanced Numerical Research and Analysis Group (ANURAG), Hyderabad, where he continued his work on computer graphics besides taking up projects on data visualization, parallel processing, and neural networks. His R&D efforts in ANURAG contributed to the development of ANAMICA and other software for medical and scientific data visualization and also to the design and productionisation of PACE series of parallel computers. As project coordinator to design and implement an Intranet for DRDO, he contributed to the setting up of the first version of DRONA network. During this tenure at ANURAG, he obtained his Ph.D. degree for his work on solving two fundamental problems of the Hopfield model of human memory.
From June 2000 onwards he was with the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Bangalore working in the field of Information Security among others. As the project director of a major initiative to develop Information Security Technologies and Solutions, he brought out a suite of products for preventive and reactive security requirements of the customers of DRDO. In particular, he developed the concept of information security overlay and applied it as a successful model for protection of two tactical C3I networks of the Indian Army. Since Jan 2013 he is with the Scientific Analysis Group, Delhi and has made contributions to the framing of the DRDO Information Security Procedures and guidelines as well as to the drafting of the Cyber Security part of the Long Term Technology Perspective Plan.
His current research interests are Information Security Management, Computational Intelligence, Network Data Mining, and Cyber Security Technologies. So far he has guided two scientists towards their Ph.D. and three scientists towards their M.S. (Engg.) research degrees in reputed institutions of the country. He has participated in a number of international and national conferences and workshops, and has published about twenty-five papers in archived journals and about thirty papers in conference proceedings.
Dr. Athithan was selected as a Young Associate of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1989. He received the Scientist of the Year award from DRDO for the year 1998. He received the R & D Excellence award for year 2006 from Bharat Electronics Ltd. During 2005 he became a senior member of the IEEE. As the leader of his team, he received the Agni Award for Excellence in Self-Reliance for the year 2008 from DRDO. He was promoted to the rank of Distinguished Scientist in September 2015.
