Rudra Dutta was born in Kolkata, India, in 1968. After completing elementary schooling in Kolkata, he received a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India, in 1991, a M.E. in Systems Science and Automation from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India in 1993, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA, in 2001. From 1993 to 1997 he worked for IBM as a software developer and programmer in various networking related projects. He has been employed from 2001 - 2007 as Assistant Professor, from 2007 - 2013 as Associate Professor, and since 2013 as Professor, in the department of Computer Science at the North Carolina State University, Raleigh. During the summer of 2005, he was a visiting researcher at the IBM WebSphere Technology Institute in RTP, NC, USA. His current research interests focus on design and performance optimization of large networking systems, Internet architecture, wireless networks, and network analytics.

His research is supported currently by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Security Agency, and industry, including a recent GENI grant and a FIA grant from NSF. He has served as a reviewer for many premium journals, on NSF, DoE, ARO, and NSERC (Canada) review panels, as part of the organizing committee of many premium conferences, including Program Co-chair for the Second International Workshop on Traffic Grooming. Most recently, he has served as Program Chair for the Optical Networking Symposium at IEEE Globecom 2008, General Chair of IEEE ANTS 2010, and as guest editor of a special issue on Green Networking and Communications of the Elsevier Journal of Optical Switching and Networking. He is currently serving on the Steering Committee of IEEE ANTS 2013, and on the editorial board of the Elsevier Journal of Optical Switching and Networking.

He is married with two children and lives in Cary, North Carolina with his family. His father and his sister's family live in Kolkata, India.