Director

Prof Rajat Moona is currently heading IIT Gandhinagar as Director. Before joining IIT Gandhinagar, he had served as Director of IIT Bhilai and Director General of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). He is also a faculty member in the department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Kanpur. He, along with his students and colleagues, has authored 18 patents, several research papers and books.

Prof Moona holds a BTech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur (1981-1985) and a PhD in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore (1985-1989). His research area spans over embedded computing, computer security, VLSI design and Operating Systems.

He had been instrumental in defining some of the key applications for the country, such as smart card driving license, vehicle registration, e-passport, electronic toll collection, mobility card, etc. Prof Moona is an active member of the technical committee of the Election Commission of India for EVMs and has been instrumental in defining the EVMs and VVPAT. He has also contributed in defining the national voter service portal and national electoral search for voters.

Prof Moona is the recipient of several awards and recognitions, including Indo-US Science and Technology Fellowship, Poonam and Prabhu Goel Chair Professorship, VASVIK Award for the year 2010, IESA Techno-visionary Award 2014, Fellowship of Maharashtra Academy of Sciences 2015, National award of Election Commission of India 2016 for the best electoral practices, and most recently, a Special Award for IT Initiatives by the Election Commission of India in 2022.