Noted computer scientist Dr Anandan Padmanabhan has been appointed as Vice President of Adobe Research to head its Big Data Experience Lab (BEL) in Bengaluru. Earlier, Padmanabhan was the MD (research outreach) at Microsoft. In his new role at Adobe, he will lead the company’s big data research initiatives including data mining, machine learning, social network analysis, mobile experience and content intelligence technologies. As Adobe is charting a new growth frontier, all these areas are important focus points.

Adobe India holds a strategic importance for the overall growth of the organization, contributing to over a third of Adobe’s overall R&D efforts.

In his statement to ET, Dr Shriram Revankar, VP & Fellow, Adobe Research Big Data Experience Lab said, “Adobe has always been at the forefront of cutting edge technology innovations, and our Research Labs in India have been instrumental in developing product innovations that are today driving the company’s growth worldwide. Our Research Labs in Bengaluru attract some of the best talent in the industry, and we are delighted to strengthen our team with a computer scientist and visionary of the caliber of Dr. Padmanabhan. I am confident that his vast experience, knowledge and pioneering work will significantly contribute to Adobe’s commitment to transforming digital experiences, and boost our R&D innovations out of India”.

Dr Padmanabhan will report to Dr Shriram Revankar, Head of BEL globally, who will continue to lead Adobe’s big data research at the Bengaluru and San Jose locations. Padmanabhan brings with him more than 20 years of valuable research experience resulting in number of papers, patents and recognition in the form of various awards in computer vision.

Prior to joining Microsoft in 1997, Dr. Padmanabhan, was an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Yale University for four years, where he founded the computer vision group. He has published over 60 papers in leading journals and conferences and has over 6,000 citations by other researchers in the field of computer vision. He is credited with pioneering work in the areas of visual motion analysis, video surveillance, and 3D scene modeling from images and video.

He holds an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, a master of science in computer science from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Adobe began its operations in India in 1997.  There are now nearly 4,000 Adobe employees based in the country, and more than 225 patents have been filed.