Narayana Santhanam is with the University of Hawaii at Manoa from 2009 as an Assistant Professor. Prior to this, he held a postdoctoral position at the University of California, Berkeley from 2007 to 2009. He obtained his PhD from the University of California at San Diego in 2006.

He is a recipient of the 2006 Information Theory Best paper award as well as the 2003 Capocelli Prize.