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!