Koushik Kar is an assistant professor in the Electrical, Computer &
Systems Engineering department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY,
a position he has held since 2002. He received his B.Tech. degree in
Electrical Engineering in 1997 from the Indian Institute of Technology,
Kanpur, and his Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering in 2002 from the
University of Maryland, College Park.  Dr. Kar's research interests are in
modeling and performance optimization of communication networks, and includes
issues like access control, traffic engineering, congestion control and energy
management in such networks. His recent research work is primarily focused on
developing distributed optimization algorithms for efficient usage of
bandwidth and energy in wireless ad-hoc and sensor networks. Dr. Kar received
the Career Award from the National Science Foundation in 2005.