Dr. Sanjoy Paul is currently the Executive Director of Rice Nexus, the university’s premier innovation factory offering state-of-the-art facilities, guidance and mentoring for prototyping, testing, and launching new ventures by Rice faculty and students. Designed to de-risk, develop, and deploy new technology, the Rice Nexus aims to bridge the gap between the university and commercial markets by fostering partnerships with key corporate, government, community and venture capital firms.
Dr. Paul previously worked at Accenture LLC., as a Managing Director, Technology, heading Systems and Platforms R&D at Accenture Technology Labs covering Robotics, 5G, Digital Twin, AI Architecture & Algorithms—globally. He is also on the advisory board of Almawiz, Inc. and a Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at Rice University. His research lies in the intersection of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML), Computer Networking, Internet of Things (IoT) and Extended Reality (XR). Specifically, he studies ways in which AI/ML, IoT and XR techniques can be brought together to build scalable and deployable intelligent systems to transform industries like Space, Healthcare, Energy, Manufacturing and Technology.
Dr. Paul received a bachelor's degree in electronics and electrical communications engineering (ECE) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 1985, and a doctoral degree in electrical engineering from University of Maryland at College Park, in August 1992. He also received a master of business administration (MBA) from the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, in May 2005. His previous appointments include Adjunct Professor in the Department of Computer Science at San Jose State University (2020), Global Digital Head of Manufacturing and Technology at Wipro, Ltd. (2016-2020), Managing Director at Accenture (2011-16), Associate Vice President & General Manager at Infosys (2007-11), Founder & CEO at RelevantAd Technologies (2005-07), Research Professor at Rutgers University (2005-07), Research Director at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies (2001-2005), Chief Technology Officer at Edgix (1999-2001) and Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Labs (1992-99).
He is the recipient of Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Kharagpur, Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award from the R&D Council of New Jersey, William R. Bennett award from IEEE Communications Society for the best original paper in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Infosys Excellence Award for Innovations and Thought Leadership and MIT Technology Review’s Grand Challenges for India award.