Data-based research at IIT Bombay

Abstract

1. OVERVIEW The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay has a history of research and development in the area of databases, dating back to the early 1980s. D. B. Phatak and N. L. Sarda were among the first faculty members at IIT Bombay to work in the area of database systems. This was a period when the financial sector of India, headquartered primarily in Bombay (now renamed Mumbai) saw a spurt in computerization, and IIT Bombay faculty played a leading role as consultants for database implementations in these companies. Research in the area of databases began in the early 1980s, but increased greatly from the early 1990s, with the hiring of several faculty including S. Seshadri, S. Sudarshan, and later Krithi Ramamritham, who moved to IIT Bombay from U. Mass. Amherst in the early to mid 1990s. With the hiring of Sunita Sarawagi and Soumen Chakrabarti in the late 1990s, there was a significant broadening, with the group no longer being just a database group, but rather a much broader data management group, with interests in information retrieval, and data mining. More recently Ganesh Ramakrishnan joined our group, further increasing its strengths in information retrieval and data mining. The number of PhD students increased from around 1 or 2 enrolled at a time in the early 1990s, to about 12 to 15 students at a time in recent years. While this number is much better than earlier, and is increasing rapidly, it is still small by most standards. However, our master’s and bachelor’s students have compensated for the shortage of PhD students, and have made very significant contributions to our research efforts, with well over three fourths of our papers having such students as coauthors. Today, the group covers a diverse range of interests, which you can see from the different research projects showcased in this article. In the following sections, we outline the major research projects of the group. We wrap up the article with a summary of other contributions to the community, by group members. For more information about the group, please visit: http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/infolab