Ranjan Pal

Ranjan Pal (a PhD in Computer Science) is a Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management who broadly conducts and leads research on cyber risk/resilience management through Cybersecurity at MIT Sloan (CAMS) using the interplay of computer science, decision science, and applied mathematics. He is also currently an invited member of the systems cyber-resilience working group (WG) at the World Economic Forum contributing his expert insights on solving the most important societal challenges on cyber resilience.

Ranjan's primary research interest lies in the broad domain of cyber risk/resilience management in IT/IoT-driven information systems (and their supply-chain ecosystems) that support enterprises built upon critical infrastructure. He specializes in the design, analysis, and simulation of principled, state-of-the-art interdisciplinary solutions to 'burning' strategic, operational, and governance issues hampering cybersecurity  improvement, using tools from decision science, graph theory, Monte Carlo simulations, economics, applied probability, algorithmics, and system dynamics. Ranjan pioneered the field of mathematical models adjudicating the market sustainability of cyber-insurance solutions. He also casually dabbles in the performance management of distributed IT systems.

Ranjan has published/contributed to nearly 90 research articles in premier academic, policy, and global business outlets that include ACM/IEEE/AIS/Elsevier journal and conference proceedings, World Economic Forum reports, Forbes, The Financial Times, The Economic Times, The Financial Express, Re-InAsia, and The Times of India. Simply put, much of Ranjan's cyber-risk management research can be viewed as 'Wall Street' stuff of the cyber world. He has also given around 40 visiting talks on his research throughout the globe. 

Prior to joining MIT, Ranjan was on the faculty of the University of Michigan, was a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge, and held invited summer research/faculty positions at Princeton University, Indian School of Business, Tsinghua University, University of Michigan, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, and Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He was a PhD student at the University of Southern California. Ranjan is an associate editor of the ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems and has consulted for the cyber assurance industry in the USA.

In his spare time, Ranjan is a non-professional practitioner and life-long research student of Vedic (Parashari) astrology (Jyotisha)  through his family tradition. He trains under and collaborates with the brilliant Dr. Richa Shukla (a renowned professional Vedic astrologer in India and a direct student of the world-renowned astrology legend Shri K. N. Rao) on periodic Vedic astrology articles for the common audience. Ranjan also studies Vedanta philosophy.