N. Rao Machiraju is an Indian American scientist and business executive, He is known for his work in information retrieval and holds 10 patents in information retrieval. From 2016 to 2022, he was an executive in residence and co-director of the Center for Human Applied Reasoning and the Internet of Things (Chariot) at the University of Southern California. Rao has an interdisciplinary educational background in public health, general systems, information networks, and instructional technology. He was a principal scientist at Apple Inc., where he headed the Advanced Technology Group (ATG) Learning Communities Laboratory. He was also a co-founder and CEO of reQall Inc., an MIT Media Lab spin off, and a co-founder of Magically Inc. and ConceptLabs. He has also worked on various research and development projects in information retrieval, organizational memory, location sense, rural healthcare, and multimedia computing. He has also served on the Founding editorial boards of Journal of Expert Systems and Telematics and Informatics Journal. Currently, he serves on several boards for US and Singapore based companies.