PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Nalini K. Ratha

Nalini K. Ratha is a University at Buffalo researcher whose work spans biometric recognition, computer vision and privacy-preserving AI. They earned engineering degrees at IIT Kanpur and a computer science PhD at Michigan State, then spent nearly 25 years at IBM on biometric systems, including software that transformed fingerprints into distorted, repeatable models. They led the IEEE Biometrics Council, became Fellows of IEEE and IAPR, and joined the University at Buffalo in 2020; they now direct TRAIL as a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor. In March 2026, they led a Buffalo team developing a system to distinguish radiology reports written by humans from those generated by AI.

Works
224
Citations
11,351
h-index
44
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1977–1982

    A National Merit Scholarship

    They receive India's National Merit Scholarship for 1977–1982 and place first in Intermediate Science at Berhampur University in 1977. They earn a B.Tech in electrical engineering and an M.Tech in computer science and engineering from IIT Kanpur, plus a PhD in computer science from Michigan State.

  2. 2003

    Two biometrics books

    In 2003, they coauthor Guide to Biometrics and coedit Automatic Fingerprint Recognition Systems, two books on biometric methods and fingerprint recognition.

  3. 2005

    Cancelable biometrics

    In 2005, they work as a scientist in IBM's Exploratory Computer Vision Group at the Watson Research Center on cancelable biometrics. The team develops software that transforms fingerprints into distorted models with repeatable identification markers for database storage.

  4. 2007–2008

    IEEE and IAPR fellowships

    They become an IEEE Fellow in 2007. In 2008, IAPR names them a Fellow for contributions to biometric authentication.

  5. 2011–2019

    Biometrics Council leadership

    They serve as president of the IEEE Biometrics Council from January 2011 to December 2012. ACM names them a Distinguished Member in 2015; IBM names them a Master Inventor in 2018, and the Council gives them its Leadership Award in 2019.

  6. July 2020–2021

    Joining the University at Buffalo

    In July 2020, they join the University at Buffalo as an Empire Innovation Professor after nearly 25 years at IBM. The National Academy of Inventors names them a Fellow for its 2021 class, and they hold over 85 patents as an inventor or co-inventor. They design an 11-point attack to analyze security threats to biometric systems.

  7. July 2021–June 2024

    Editor in chief of IEEE biometrics

    From July 2021 to June 2024, they serve as editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Biometrics, Behavior, and Identity Science, a quarterly peer-reviewed journal.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor and TRAIL director

    As of October 2026, they are a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the University at Buffalo's Department of Computer Science and Engineering and direct its Trustworthy and Responsible AI Lab (TRAIL). Their research spans biometric recognition, computer vision, adversarial robustness, deepfake detection and privacy-preserving AI. Their team presents “Detecting Synthetic Radiology Reports Using Style Disentanglement” at the GenAI4Health workshop during the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems in San Diego in December 2025; in March 2026, they lead a UB group developing an AI system to distinguish radiology reports written by humans from those generated by AI.

Career

  1. Since 2020University at Buffalo, State University of New YorkEmpire Innovation Professor
  2. 2023–2025Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal
  3. Until 2020IBM ResearchScientist and biometrics research lead
  4. 1997–2020IBM

Education

  1. Indian Institute of Technology KanpurB.Tech and M.Tech
  2. Michigan State UniversityPhD

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Enhancing security and privacy in biometrics-based authentication systems2001 · IBM Systems Journal · 1,689 citationsWith Ruud M. Bolle
  2. Generating Cancelable Fingerprint Templates2007 · IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence · 878 citationsWith Ruud M. Bolle
  3. Guide to Biometrics2004 · Springer eBooks · 615 citationsWith Andrew W. Senior, Ruud M. Bolle and Sharath Pankanti
  4. A real-time matching system for large fingerprint databases1996 · IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence · 589 citationsWith Anil K. Jain
  5. Adaptive flow orientation-based feature extraction in fingerprint images1995 · Pattern Recognition · 535 citationsWith Anil K. Jain

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. 23% of people shaping AI who left a university for a company later returned to a universityIncludes Nalini K. Ratha. We estimate that 468 of the 2,011 people shaping AI who left a university for a company (23%) later returned to a university after a median of 5 years, and 163 of 829 (20%) made the reverse round trip.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University at Buffalo, State University of New York. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes University at Buffalo, State University of New York. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  4. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes University at Buffalo, State University of New York. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Professor Nalini Ratha - Scholar cse.buffalo.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Biometrics 2006 - The Lecturers - Ratha (bio) biometrics.uniss.it. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. IBM works toward replacable biometrics - Computerworld computerworld.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Alphabetical List of IAPR Fellows iapr.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. Nalini Ratha named editor-in-chief of international IEEE journal on biometrics engineering.buffalo.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. UB’s Nalini Ratha named as National Academy of Inventors Fellow buffalo.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Prof. Nalini K. Ratha Joins Us As EIC TBIOM ieee-biometrics.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. UB researchers developing tool to spot AI-generated radiology reports engineering.buffalo.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. Ratha, Nalini - Department of Computer Science and Engineering - University at Buffalo engineering.buffalo.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.