Arogyaswami Paulraj (SM'85) was born in Coimbatore, India, on April 14, 1944. He joined the Indian Navy through the National Defense Academy, Kharakvasla, India, in 1961 and later obtained his engineering education at various Naval training establishments. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, in 1973.During 1971-1973, he worked on the development of sonar receivers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Between 1974 and 1975, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Loughborough University of Technology, Loughborough, England. From 1976 to 1983, he headed the Systems Division at the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory, Cochin, India, and supervised the development of sonar systems. During the same period he also spent several brief periods teaching at the Indian Institute of Technology at Delhi and Madras. From October 1983 to June 1986, he was a Visiting Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA. His earlier theoretical research interests were in nonlinear filtering theory. More recently, he has been working on emitter location and optimum beamforming problems.
Dr. Paulraj is the recipient of several national awards of the Government of India. He received the Distinguished Service Medal for sonar receiver design in 1973. In 1984, he received the Most Distinguished Service Medal, and in 1985, the Vasvik Award for his contributions to sonar technology.