2020 Rising Star, Deeksha Dangwal 

Story by Andrew Masuda, edited by Natalia Diaz Amabilis

For the original story go here.

 

Three UC Santa Barbara scientists are among the one hundred fifty women nationwide

who have been invited to the 2020 Rising Stars in Electrical Engineering and Computer

Science (EECS) Workshop. Esmat Farzana, a postdoctoral researcher in the Materials

Department, Yating Wan, a postdoc in the Electrical and Computer Engineering

Department, and computer science PhD student Deeksha Dangwal 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.”

 

The Department of Computer Science is delighted to see one of our very own students

have access to this remarkable opportunity. Congratulations Deeksha!