On September 30, 2022, the College of Letters & Science hosted the college’s first investiture ceremony honoring new appointments of endowed faculty positions for the 2022-23 academic year and the donors that make these esteemed positions possible. The evening celebrated the dedication of faculty and the impact of philanthropy.
The School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences honored three faculty members during the ceremony:
- Patrick McDaniel, Computer Sciences — Tsun-Ming Shih Chair in the College of Letters & Science
- Karu Sankaralingam, Computer Sciences — Mark D. Hill and David A. Wood Professor in the Department of Computer Sciences
- Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau, Computer Sciences — Catherine A. Erickson Professor in the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences
Patrick McDaniel
Tsun-Ming Shih Chair in the College of Letters & Science
This chair was established through the generosity of Tsun-Ming Shih, and his desire to honor a leading scholar who is exceptional in their field.
Professor McDaniel is a prominent scholar in the Department of Computer Sciences in the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences and a leading researcher in cybersecurity. He has earned numerous accolades and distinguished honors throughout his career including serving as a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
He is the recipient of the SIGOPS Hall of Fame Award and SIGSAC Outstanding Innovation Award, and the director of the NSF Frontier Center for Trustworthy Machine Learning. He also served as the lead scientist for the Army Research Laboratory’s Cybersecurity Collaborative Research Alliance from 2013 to 2018.
His research focuses on a wide range of topics in computer and network security as well as technical public policy. Professor McDaniel’s research includes examining how to protect the networks that give us access to the internet, analysis of machine learning and detecting and mitigating threats posed by our adversaries, and thought-provoking work on privacy including bringing awareness, introducing tools and solutions, and activating participation in public policy to improve privacy practices.
Prior to joining the University of Wisconsin in 2022, Professor McDaniel was the William L. Weiss Professor Information and Communications Technology and Director of the Institute for Networking and Security Research at Penn State University.
Karu Sankaralingam
Mark D. Hill and David A. Wood Professor in the Department of Computer Sciences
This professorship was established through the generosity of an anonymous donor who wishes to honor UW emeriti professors, Mark D. Hill and David A. Wood, for their significant contributions in the field of computer science.
Professor Sankaralingam is a leading scholar in computer architecture as well as an entrepreneur and inventor. He has published over 100 research papers, mentored and advised nine PhD graduates, in addition to holding 21 patents and authoring nine award-winning papers.
He is a recipient of the Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Award, the Wisconsin Innovation Award, the IEEE TCCA Young Computer Architecture Award, the Emil H. Steiger Distinguished Teaching award, the Philip R. Certain & Gary Sandefur Distinguished Faculty award, and the NSF Career award.
In his research, he has pioneered the principles of dataflow computing, focusing on the role of architectures, microarchitecture and the compiler. His research breakthroughs include constraint-theory based compilation for spatial architectures, specialized datapaths that can be dynamically configured, and hybrid dataflow von-Neumann execution to name a few.
His work has been featured in industry forums of Mentor and Synopsys, and has been covered by the New York Times, Wired, and the IEEE Spectrum.
Professor Sankaralingam is not only an exceptional researcher, he is also a brilliant entrepreneur who can translate research into commercial products. In 2017, he founded SimpleMachines, Inc., a startup that built a revolutionary new AI computer chip that was faster and more powerful than anything else on the market.
Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau
Catherine A. Erickson Professor in the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences
This professorship was established in honor Catherine A. Erickson through the generosity of Tom Erickson and Margaret Erickson who wish to support extraordinary faculty who are committed to increasing diversity and representation in the field.
Professor Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau is a world-renowned and award-winning computer scientist specializing in file and storage systems. She has also made significant contributions in distributed systems, virtualization, and scheduling.
Professor Arpaci-Dusseau has been a highly respected faculty member at the University of Wisconsin since 2000. In that time, she has won 12 best-paper awards and served as a prolific researcher, publishing the 4th most papers at leading systems conferences and the most at the top file and storage conferences.
In 2018, Professor Arpaci-Dusseau and her colleague, Professor Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, received the highest honor in the field of systems, and were awarded the SIGOPS Mark Weiser award for outstanding leadership, innovation, and impact in storage and computer systems research.
Professor Arpaci-Dusseau has advised 28 PhD graduates and cares deeply about education and outreach. She has helped hundreds of UW-Madison undergraduate and graduate students connect with thousands of fourth and fifth grade children in the Madison community. Through weekly after-school Computer Science Clubs known as Catapult, Professor Arpaci-Dusseau’s program exposes young minds to computer science and provides UW students with the skills to teach.
Photos from the Investiture Ceremony
