Girish Nair

Girish Nair is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering within the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Melbourne. His academic background includes a Doctor of Philosophy from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Melbourne in 2000, a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering with First Class Honours in 1994, and a Bachelor of Science with majors in mathematics and physics in 1995, all from the University of Melbourne.

His professional career has been centered at the University of Melbourne, advancing from contract Lecturer (August 1999–2001), Senior Lecturer (contract 2002–2003, continuing 2003–2007), Associate Professor (2008–2013), to Professor (continuing from 2014). He served as an Australian Research Council Future Fellow (February 2015–2019), Visiting Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich (September 2013–January 2014), and Residential Tutor in Engineering at International House (1995–1998). Nair heads the Control and Signal Processing research group in his department. His research specializations encompass control and estimation over communication-constrained and networked systems, nonstochastic information theory for communication and state estimation, quantized control and data-rate constraints, topological feedback entropy, network utility maximization, strategic games, and privacy-constrained communication.

He is a Fellow of the IEEE (2018). Notable awards include the George S. Axelby Outstanding Paper Award (IEEE Control Systems Society, 2014 for 2012–2013 paper), SIAM Outstanding Paper Prize (2006 for 2003–2005 paper), Best Theory Paper Prize (UKACC International Conference on Control, 2000), L.R. East Medal for best final-year engineering performance (1994), Dixson Prize in Electrical Engineering (1994), and multiple Dixson Prizes in mathematics (1991–1992). Key publications are 'A nonstochastic information theory for communication and state estimation' (IEEE Trans. Automatic Control, 2013), 'Topological feedback entropy and nonlinear stabilization' (IEEE Trans. Automatic Control, 2004), 'Stabilization with data-rate-limited feedback: tightest attainable bounds' (Systems & Control Letters, 2000), 'Quantized control and data-rate constraints' (Encyclopedia of Systems and Control, 2015), and 'Structural routability of n-pairs information networks' (Information and Control in Networks, 2014).

Professional Email: gnair@unimelb.edu.au