Category: <span>Selected Past News Items</span>

Will successfully defended his doctoral thesis in October, 2022! He has been working full time as a Network Engineer and Architect at Duke University, but managed to make progress on research, and publishing, even while doing so. His work focused on the evolutionary use of Software Defined Networking techniques in real enterprise networks, by studying the pros and cons of such deployments in real-world environments, and identifying optimal factoring and placement of network policy, from the level of individual tables within Network Elements, to enterprise-wide views. In the final stretch of his doctoral work, Will focused on the large-scale end of such deployments.

Rob successfully defended his doctoral thesis in April, 2021, in the videoconference format that became the norm during the Covid-19 pandemic! He was interested in network architecture in general, and worked on both the ChoiceNet project, and the JUNO Optical ChoiceNet project, and designed service representation, negotiation, purchasing, and provisioning methods in those frameworks. The bulk of this thesis research went toward a comprehensive study of the effects of interaction of customer and provider strategies in hybrid optical packet-circuit networks, and designing strategies that result in collaborative optimization of network performance, for a win-win scenario. He published over a dozen papers during his PhD. For the last few years of his PhD, he has been also working full time at NetApp, where he continued immediately following his doctoral defense.

Harsh successfully defended his doctoral thesis in October, 2020, in the videoconference format that became the norm during the Covid-19 pandemic! The bulk of his work was on detection of botnets from partial traffic traces. Harsh also studied the issue of alternative decompositions of the same overall security functionality over an enterprise network, and specific issues at the intersection of security and SDN, such as RoP attacks on obfuscated code. Toward the end of his PhD, he transitioned to the AERPAW project as a Network and Systems Architect. Harsh continued in this position, and contributed to this nationally unique research facility, for a few months beyond his degree completion, before transitioning to a more traditional job. AERPAW was very glad to have had this effort from him at a crucial juncture in the project! In his new role, Harsh is helping design datapaths for future (and futuristic) forwaring engine products.

AERPAW is an outdoor testbed for advanced wireless experiments that was funded starting September 2019, a five-year project that is expected to be funded to a total of $24M in cash and in-kind cutting-edge equipment donations. It is envisioned to extend over much of the Centennial Campus, and extend into areas south as well as areas east of campus, intended to serve a nationwide community of academic and industrial researchers. It consists of programmable radios and programmable drones on a programmable network. Dr. Dutta is one of five Co-PIs for the grant, and is acting as the Chief Architect (Networking and Systems) for the facility.

Dr. Dutta is the author (along with his Japanese colleague, Dr. Hiroaki Harai) of the chapter on “Traffic Grooming” in a new compendium work, in four parts and thirty-five chapters, on Optical Networking. Each chapter was authored by acknowledged world authorities in the respective fields. The book is now available for purchase online both in print and as an e-book.

Starting December, 2018, Dr. Dutta has been serving as the Associate Department Head (on an interim basis till December 2020, confirmed appointment thereafter), to provide continuity and support to Dr. Gregg Rothermel, who started in November 2018 as the new Department Head of Computer Science.

During 2019-20 and 2020-21, Dr. Dutta served on the URPTC. This committee advises the provost in continually reviewing the RPT process, including randomly selected dossiers from each college, and other material associated with the process such as the academic regulations. As part of the process review, the URPTC is also charged with reviewing all dossiers for faculty who received a negative decision for reappointment, promotion and/or tenure from the Dean.

Russell successfully defended his doctoral thesis in June, 2019. He was advised by Dr. Douglas Reeves, and co-advised by Dr. Dutta since his Oral Preliminary exam. His primary work has been in security of Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), the routing workhorse of the Internet. Russell examined several key vulnerabilities of OSPF, and conceived and demonstrated various security mechanisms at various levels, which together make for comprehensive security against OSPF attackers. He goes on to a research job with the US government in Maryland.

Shireesh successfully defended his doctoral thesis in May, 2017. His primary work has been in the ChoiceNet project, specifically issues of efficient service composition, and the representation of service alternatives.

During 2016-17 and 2017-18, Dr. Dutta served on the USCoEEED. This committee advises university leadership on extension, engagement and economic development, recommends related regulations and procedures, and performs advocacy activities that include awarding of various established awards, including the prestigious Opal Mann Green award.