Dangwal - Rising Star 2020
Three UCSB scientists, including CS's Deeksha Dangwal, among the 150 women nationwide invited to the 2020 Rising Stars in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Workshop
Computer science PhD student Deeksha Dangwal, electrical and computer engineering postdoc Yating Wan, and materials postdoc Esmat Farzana will participate in the prestigious workshop intended to increase the number of women interested in pursuing academic careers in computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering. Participants were selected based on their academic excellence, their interest in a faculty career in the EECS discipline, and their commitment to advancing equity and inclusion. UC Berkeley will host the annual event virtually from November 9-10. Attendees will present their research, interact with faculty from top-tier universities, and receive advice for advancing their careers.
A rising fifth-year PhD student of computer science, Dangwal is advised by Professor Timothy Sherwood. Dangwal focuses her research on computer architecture with an interest in the design of private computer systems. Currently, she is exploring privacy in program traces with the intent of minimizing information leakage in program traces when sharing program behavior for co-optimization. She says that the key tradeoff is balancing the number of bits leaked while maintaining utility of the traces shared. Her research uses a technique called trace winging, which is intended to remove as much information from the trace as possible while still maintaining key characteristics of the original computation. Dangwal, who received her bachelor’s degree from Ramaiah Institute of Technology, says she is grateful to participate in the workshop.
“The conference presents a great opportunity to meet and learn from successful female faculty mentors. I also look forward to learning from my peers,” said Dangwal, who has also mentored undergraduate female students pursuing science and engineering degrees through the National Science Foundation’s Early Research Scholars Program. “During my time at UCSB, I have enjoyed conducting independent research and mentoring students. Forming connections with students and watching them grow and succeed has been very rewarding. I hope that a career in academia will help me continue doing this. I hope to open up opportunities for others who may not feel welcomed to this field.”
Dangwal was the lead-author of a paper on trace wringing that was selected this year for IEEE Micro’s Top Picks, an annual special edition of the IEEE Micro magazine that acknowledges the ten most significant research papers from computer architecture conferences in the last year based on novelty and potential for long-term impact.
“I was incredibly excited to recommended Deeksha because she is an amazingly creative and visionary researcher whose work in privacy is having an impact around the globe,” said Sherwood, whose lab, over the years, has had ten papers selected for IEEE Micro’s Top Picks, including the article on trace wringing. “Her award-winning work has established a new way to think about managing data privacy, and she is already seen as a leader in the field. This workshop will be an outstanding opportunity for her to grow her professional network and connect with some of the other brightest stars our field has to offer.”
