# Professor Emeritus, University of Texas at San Antonio

Source: https://startwithidentity.com/experts/ravi-sandhu/
Last updated: 2026-09-20
License: content by Start with Identity. Cite the source URL.

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## Bio

Ravi Sandhu formalized the RBAC96 family of models, which set out roles, role hierarchies, constraints, and their administrative counterparts as a coherent framework rather than a product feature. He was founding executive director of the Institute for Cyber Security at UTSA and holds the Lutcher Brown Endowed Chair.

Profile built from public academic and publication records.

## Where their work shows up

Every access-control screen that lets you assign a role rather than a list of permissions inherits this model, including the hierarchy and separation-of-duties constraints that make it useful for audit. RBAC96 also established the vocabulary the field still argues in, which is why the move to attribute- and relationship-based models is framed as a successor to it rather than a replacement. See [RBAC vs ABAC vs ReBAC](https://startwithidentity.com/guides/fundamentals/rbac-vs-abac-vs-rebac/), [implementing RBAC in the enterprise](https://startwithidentity.com/guides/authorization/implementing-rbac-enterprise/), and [what is IGA](https://startwithidentity.com/guides/fundamentals/what-is-iga/).