Prof Vijay Varadharajan has held the Global Innovation Chair Professor in Cyber Security at the University of Newcastle since March 2017 until Aug 2025. This Global Innovation Chair position is at the level of ARC Laureate Fellowship. He also headed the Advanced Cyber Security Engineering Research Centre (ACSRC) at Newcastle. Since March 2022, he has taken the additional role of chief cyber strategist. He is also an Affiliate at the Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI), where his interests are in trustworthy medical technologies and secure online healthcare services.

Prior to Newcastle, Vijay was the Microsoft Chair Professor in Innovation in Australia, based at Macquarie University, Sydney (2001-2017). The Microsoft Chair position was at the level of ARC Federation Fellowship. He created the the ACSRC and established extensive linkages with Microsoft at Redmond US, Cambridge UK and Microsoft Asia. At Macquarie, he conceived the concept of an interdisciplinary institute in Cyber Security bringing together Technology, Business and Law, and was the Founder of the Optus MQ Cyber Security Hub. Prior to Macquarie, Vijay was Dean of School of Computing and IT at University of Western Sydney (1996-2000).

From 1988 to 1995 Vijay headed Worldwide Security Research for HP Labs in Bristol, UK. Under his leadership at HP Labs, 6 different security technologies were transferred into successful HP products, generating over 4 Billion US dollars. He also headed the Technical Security Strategy Initiative at HP under the Senior Vice President, USA. From 1987-88, Vijay was Research Manager at British Telecom Research Labs. U.K. During 1985-1986, first he was Research Fellow and then Lecturer in Computer Science at Plymouth and Reading Universities. He attained his Ph.D in Computer and Communication Security from Plymouth and Exeter Universities in 1984, sponsored by BT Research Labs. He attained his First Class Honours Electronic Engineering Bachelors degree from Sussex University, UK in 1981. He was awarded the 1981 Prize of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, IEE, for outstanding performance at Sussex University as well as the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals Award UK.

Vijay has had several visiting positions at different institutions over the years including Isaac Newton Institute of Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University, Senior Research Scientist at Microsoft Research Cambridge, Senior Research Scientist at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences at National University of Singapore, Invited Professor at French National Research Labs (INRIA), Invited Professor at the Indian Inst. of Technology, Research Scientist at Fujitsu Research Labs, Fellow at British Telecom Research Labs., UK, Visiting Professor at eScience Institute, Edinburgh University, Adjunct at Oxford Martin School, Oxford University, UK and Visiting Professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Vijay has also been a Senior Visiting Fellow with the Australian Academy of Science and the Indian Institute of Science. Recently Vijay has been appointed as Mercator Fellow by the German Research Foundation with the Technical University of Darmstadt.

Vijay was on the Board of International Advisors of TCPA, USA, originally formed by HP, Microsoft, Intel, Sun and Compaq. Now TCPA is known as TCG and TCPA security specification is currently being in products endorsed by numerous companies. Vijay is a founding member of the Trustworthy Computing Academic Advisory Board (Microsoft, USA) (selected as one of top 10 people in the world in cyber systems security and trustworthy computing, announced by Bill Gates in July 2002) (2002-2014), is a member of the SAP International Security Advisory Board (SAP Corporation, Germany/Germany) (2010-2014) and is a member of SAP Next Business and Technology Board (USA) (2011-2013). He is also a member of the Australian Government's Peak Security Advisory Body, ITSEAG, for the Ministry of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy, Australia (2008-2013). He was an Adviser to the ITU Secretary General H.I.Toure in cyber security matters (2011-2012). He has been the Technical Board Director of Computer Science at Australian Computer Society (1999-2006), and a member of the Board of Studies NSW Australian Government 2005-2012.

Vijay was a member of the Australian Research Council (ARC) ARC College of Experts in Engineering, Mathematics and Informatics in 2011 for 3 years. Vijay  is a member of the Australian Academy of Science National Committee on Information and Communication Systems (2014 -- ). In April 2014, Vijay has been appointed to the ICT Advisory Panel in the NSW Government (2014-2015). In May 2015, he has been appointed to the Cyber Security Task Force (CSTF) in India, which has been created upon the recommendation of the Prime Minister of India (2015 -- ). He was a member of Strategic Research Priorities Committee (Cyber Security), Office of the Chief Scientist of Australia (2015). He has also been on the International Research Advisory Board of the CRC on Distributed Systems Technology (DSTC) in 1995-1998 and in 2001. Previously he has acted as an Expert in Security for the European Union and for the UK Dept. of Trade and Industry. He has also acted as consultant and architect for several projects in computing, financial and telecom organizations in the UK, US and in Australia. Vijay has been awarded the prestigious Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Samman Award India, in 2017, for his outstanding contributions in the field of Science, Engineering and Technology related to Cyber Security.

Vijay has published more than 500 papers in International Journals and Conferences, has co-authored and edited 10 books on Information Technology, Security, Networks and Distributed Systems and have held 3 patents. His research work over the years has contributed to the development of several successful secure commercial systems in the areas of Secure Distributed Applications, Secure Network Systems, Security Tools, Secure Mobile Systems as well as Cryptographic and Smart Card based Systems and secure financial, telecom and medical solutions.

For Vijay's technical research work in a range of these areas in security for more than 35 years, please see his Personal Technical Distinctions webpage. Also see Vijay’s impact on industry and community in security at Industry and Community Impact webpage. His current interests include Cyber and AI, Machine Learning Security, Autonomous Systems Security, Space Security, IoT Security, Security in 5G and Beyond Networks and Malware Analysis.

His research work has been supported by industry such as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, British Telecom and Fujitsu, as well as government agencies such Australian Research Council (ARC) (21 ARC Grants over the last 27 years and continuously funded by ARC in one form or another), UK Research Council (4 SERC/EPSRC Grants), German Research Foundation Mercator Fellowship, Australian Defense (7 DSD/DST Grants), Dept of Prime Minister and Cabinet Australia (3 NSST Grants), DFAT Grant, European Union (7 Grants -- COST, EUREKA, ESPRIT, RACE, INFOSEC EU and 7th Framework) as well as several grants with SMEs. 

He has supervised successfully 41 PhD and 11 Masters Research students in the UK and Australia. He was awarded Macquarie University's Supervisor of the Year in 2003.

Vijay has delivered over 60 Keynote Speeches at Academic International Conferences and over 240 invited speeches in various academic and industrial symposiums and workshops. He has been a program committee member or chaired over 200 international conferences. He has been an Editorial Board member of several journals including the prestigious ACM Transactions on Information System Security (TISSEC) (USA), IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Systems (TDSC), IEEE Transactions in Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), IEEE Transactions in Cloud Computing (TCC) (USA), International Journal of Information Security, Springer (Germany), Computer and Communication Security Reviews (UK) as well as IEEE Security and Privacy.

His current areas of research interest include Cyber and AI, Cloud Computing Security, Internet of Things Security, Distributed System Security, Malware and Security Attacks, Software Security, Trustworthy Computing, Software Defined Networks Security, Wireless and Mobile Networks Security, Security Architectures, Security Policies and Models, Security Protocols and Applications of Cryptography. 

Vijay is a Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS), a Fellow of the IEE, UK (FIEE), a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and Applications, UK (FIMA), a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Engineers (FIEAust), a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society (FACS), a Fellow of the Institution of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineers (FIETE) and a Fellow of the Royal Chartered Institute information Security, UK (FCIIS).