Aluru is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

[3][4] Aluru completed his B.Tech in computer science at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in the year 1989.

In 1999, he returned to his alma mater to serve as a faculty member in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.

At Iowa State, he held Stanley Chair in Interdisciplinary Engineering (2006–2009) and the Mehl Professorship (2009–2013).

He also solved the open problem of computing string edit distance or biological sequence alignments in optimal time and space.