PhD in computer science at UMD (many computer science disciplines)

I am Rajan K. Zachariah, and I graduated with an M.S. degree in Information Management from the University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP) in December 2009. I wish to pursue a doctorate Doctoral program in Computer Science to fulfill my long-term objective − a research career in academia. I am fascinated by inter related interrelated computer science fields such as Artificial Intelligence, Computer Networks and Database Systems. I would like to be a part of the University Oof Maryland's advanced research (initiative/project/work) on initiatives in Network Security and Cloud Computing.

I have always been intrigued by technological innovations and concepts that stimulate the mind. I was a top performer in both mathematics and science throughout the high school. Later, I got a chance to dabble with in computers and was fascinated by the way they worked. I planned and worked towards a career in software engineering. I did my undergraduate studies in Computer Science & Engineering from Anna University, a top ranking university in India. I was involved in two research projects during my undergraduate studies. ("Undergraduate studies" is repetitive, since you wrote it in the previous sentence too.) I worked with Prof. Rajan Babu and his research group on distributed systems. The research project goal was to create a Linux cluster of all the lab machines which could enable us to rent out computing cycles during night time nighttime so as to use idle computing resources. Later, I was involved in another research project called 'Adapt', an XML implementation with a goal to make software programming a language-independent task. This project was selected as a finalist in the All India CII (Confederation of Indian Industries) contest Confederation of Indian Industry Contest in 2004-05. For Mmy undergraduate internship, I did a research project at Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at Defense Research & Development Organization, Bangalore. The project involved developing an Interface Designer using Java (and Java swingwith Swing) which could be implemented to in design forms that could print, fill, scan and synchronize with an OCR engine and enabled the hand-written data on forms to be directly inserted into the database.

Towards the end of my under graduation, I got was placed with Wipro Technologies, one of the largest software service organizations in India. I worked as a software vendor for Microsoft. As a Senior Software Engineer in their Software Automation & Tools division both in India and in Seattle, I was exposed to various ideas unknown to most parts of the world, including technologies like Medusa, Surface and an early version of Azure. I met people who influenced and shaped my thinking on user perception beyond technical capabilities. I was introduced to advanced technologies involving secure distributed computing and concepts like knowledge management and decision making systems. As a result, I was motivated to do a Masters (Master of Science?) in Information Management, where much importance is given on business and user needs with the help of technology. By this time, I really started to understand that technology is an instrument to empower users in terms of communication, collaboration, entertainment, etc.

While I was a student at the University of Maryland, my understanding on Information and Knowledge extraction/management concepts including Cloud Computing were widened. This drew a lot of my attention and curiosity. Earlier, I had read about these concepts in technical blogs which fascinated me in a big (Is "big" the best word?) way and hence commenced my quest for research in these areas. Compared to a relatively small project during my undergraduate education, my attitude towards technology changed a lot. My first semester presentation on 'Copyrights, Privacy and Security' was on about how cloud computing could be used to deliver media to portable media players, such as iPod and Zune, like ipod/zune/iphone, etc, so that consumers won't would not have to suffer because of DRM digital rights management and other copyrights management systems and yet publishers could safeguard their intellectual property. Also, little was known about an online company, Lala, called 'lala.com' which formed almost two months after the presentation. It was featured in the news came out in news only recently when Apple bid for it with rumors of making it their new iTunes store. It was amazing to see an idea of mine getting transformed put into action.

In my third semester, I also took a course in cloud computing (You capitalize "cloud computing" elsewhere. Be sure to be consistent.) under Prof. Jimmy Lin. Prof. Lin heads the Academic Cloud Computing Initiative at University of Maryland. I also got had an opportunity to get my hands on the Amazon EC2 server. In addition, my final year project and presentation focused on the issues academic institutions face currently in terms of scalability, data storage capacity, quality of service, etc. My work addressed these issues using cloud computing technologies. Presently the paper is under publication. The project gave me an in-depth knowledge about cloud computing and its scope of advancement when collaborated with Artificial Intelligence and I wish to explore these areas further through my research.

My interest lies on the border lines borderline of many computer science disciplines. My goal is to build models which are intelligent, and secure and at the same time could run on large-scale distributed systems. Based upon the exposure I have gained at UMCP along with my interests in Networks and Artificial Intelligence, I comprehend that a lot can be done in these domains through intensive research. I look forward to be a part of the University Oof Maryland's cutting-edge research in these fields.

I hope my application will receive your serious consideration. I look forward for to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with the University.