Education
R. David Koilpillai received the B.Tech degree from IIT Madras, and the MS, PhD degrees (in Electrical Engineering) from California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA.

Work Experience
David has over three decades of experience in the field of wireless and cellular technologies. In June 2002, David joined IIT Madras and is currently the Head of the Department and the Qualcomm Institute Chair Professor in Electrical Engineering. He served as Dean (Planning) during 2011-2017, handling the portfolios of infrastructure, finance and strategic planning. The period April 2008 – December 2009, he served as the Co-Chair of the IITM special Task Force for setting up the new IIT at Hyderabad. David also served as Head, Central Electronics Centre of IITM during 20010-11. David’s technical areas of expertise include cellular and broadband wireless systems, and DSP techniques for wireless communications. He is the Faculty Coordinator of the IITMSAT Student Satellite initiative. During Jan – July 2007, David was on sabbatical from IITM and served as the Chief Scientist, Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT), a public-private R&D initiative of the Govt. of India, and was responsible for launching the national project – Broadband Wireless Consortium of India (BWCI). Prior to joining IITM, David was at Ericsson USA for twelve years, where he held different technical and managerial positions. In 2000, he became the Director of the Ericsson’s Advanced Technologies and Research Department at RTP, North Carolina. At IITM, David has established an active research and teaching program in wireless communications and Digital Signal Processing.

Honours / Awards
 Qualcomm Institute Chair Professorship (March 2016)
 Awarded 32 US patents, 10 Canadian Patents and 19 WIPO/European patents, 2 Indian patent
 Over 80 journal and conference publications
 1999 –“Ericsson Inventor of the Year” award, the highest technical recognition within Ericsson
 Nov 2003 - Elected Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.
 2014 - Srimathi Marti Annapurna Gurunath Award for Excellence in Teaching (Best Teacher Award of IIT Madras)
 2017 - IITM Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Service
 

Current Research @ IIT Madras

David’s current technical activities are in the following areas:
 Cellular evolution - 5G and beyond
 DSP for High Speed Coherent optical communications
 IITMSAT Student Satellite project