MITCIO
Prof. Sanjay Sarma
Professor and Former Chairman of Research and Co-Founder of The Auto-ID Center at MIT

Sanjay Sarma is a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. Sarma was one of the founders of the Auto-ID Center at MIT, which developed many of the technical concepts and standards of modern RFID. He also chaired the Auto-ID Research Council consisting of 6 labs worldwide, which he helped set up. Today, the suite of standards developed by the Auto-ID Center, commonly referred to as the EPC, are being used by over a thousand companies on five continents. Sarma serves on the board of EPCglobal, the worldwide standards body he helped create. Between 2004 and 2006, Sarma took a leave of absence from MIT to found the software company OATSystems, which was acquired by Checkpoint Systems in 2008. He is a consultant to several companies, and also serves as a permanent guest of the board of GS1.

Sarma received his Bachelors from the Indian Institute of Technology, his Masters from Carnegie Mellon University and his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. In between degrees, Sarma worked at Schlumberger Oilfield Services in Aberdeen, UK. Sarma's Masters thesis was in the area of operations research, and his PhD was in the area of automation. His current research projects are in the areas of radio frequency identification, IC packaging, manufacturing, CAD/CAM, machine design, RFID applications, device networking, mobile capture and smart devices. He has over 50 publications in computational geometry, virtual reality, manufacturing, CAD, RFID, security and embedded computing.

Sarma is a recipient of the MIT MacVicar Fellowship, National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Chair at MIT, the Den Hartog Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Keenan Award for innovations in undergraduate education, the New England Business and Technology Award, and the MIT Global Indus Award. He was selected on 2003's Business Week ebiz 25 and Fast Company Magazine's Fast Fifty. Sarma is also a MacVicar Fellow at MIT.