2008
2008
World
Two researchers show that "anonymous" Netflix Prize ratings can be matched back to named people. The privacy problem in recommender systems is born in public.
My work
Lecturer, PSG Polytechnic College
June 2008. I begin nine years of teaching diploma students in Coimbatore, India, the start of a career that runs through four institutions and two more degrees.
Where they meet
The year researchers prove that movie ratings can name you, I begin teaching. Fourteen years later my doctorate answers exactly that problem.
2012
2012
World
AlexNet wins ImageNet by a margin nobody expected. Deep learning stops being a niche and becomes the field.
My work
Back to school, and a first paper on privacy
June 2012. I begin a Master of Engineering in Computer Engineering at PSG College of Technology while teaching full time. Before the year is out I have two papers, and one of them is already about hiding people inside data.
Where they meet
My privacy research does not start with the doctorate. It starts here, as a master's student carrying a full teaching load.
2017
2017
World
"Attention is all you need" introduces the Transformer. In August, India's Supreme Court rules in Puttaswamy that privacy is a fundamental right.
My work
Assistant Professor, PSG College of Technology
June 2017, after nine years at the polytechnic. The same month I start a PhD in Information and Communication Engineering on privacy-preserving recommender systems, with Prof. G. Sudha Sadasivam.
Where they meet
The year India decides privacy is a right, I begin the work of making it a property of the software.
2021
2021
World
The European Commission proposes the AI Act. DALL·E and Codex hint at what generative models will become.
My work
Seven papers in a year: the doctoral work lands
How much privacy a recommender can add before it stops being useful, how to close the leaks in hybrid deep-learning recommenders, and how to keep a person's location private in crowd-sensed and location-based services.
Where they meet
The same year a national census trusts differential privacy, my papers show a recommender can too, without going blunt.
2023
2023
World
GPT-4 ships in March. In August, India passes the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, its first data protection law.
My work
Associate Professor, Artificial Intelligence & Data Science
June 2023, Kumaraguru College of Technology. I am teaching in a department that did not exist when I started. Seven papers with student teams follow, from fake-review detection to a book chapter on federated learning for healthcare.
Best Mentor Award, and Impactful Educator Award
Best Mentor at Thiran Thedal Thiruvizha, Kumaraguru School of Innovation, November 2023, for the Smart Mushroom Farming student project. Impactful Educator Award from the college for 2023 to 2024.
Where they meet
India writes its first data protection law. I am now teaching the engineers who will have to build to it.
2026
2026
My work
Your Data, Your Privacy
31 January 2026. As Faculty Coordinator of the ACM Student Chapter I run a morning on digital footprints and privacy for 800 students, and the same day host the official pre-summit event of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 on AI for Indian knowledge systems. From July I co-lead an ACM COMPUTE 2026 working group on how learners in Indian computing education handle refutation problems.
Where they meet
Eighteen years in, I am teaching privacy to a cohort that has never known a world without AI.