Manocha, Srinivasan Named Distinguished University Professors

Dinesh Manocha (left in photo) and Aravind Srinivasan (right) have been named Distinguished University Professors at the University of Maryland. This is the highest academic honor bestowed by the university, reserved for faculty that are recognized nationally and internationally for the importance of their scholarly achievements.

Manocha came to the university in 2018 as the Paul Chrisman Iribe Professor of Computer Science. He has joint appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS).

His research focuses on geometric and scientific algorithms with applications to computer graphics, robotics and virtual reality. As co-leader of the UMD GAMMA research group, Manocha has developed widely-used software systems related to geometric computing, physically based modeling, virtual reality, and robotics that have successfully transitioned to industry.

Audio simulation technologies developed by GAMMA have been licensed by leading commercial vendors and are used in game engines and virtual reality systems. Manocha also co-founded Impulsonic, a developer of physics-based audio simulation technologies, which was acquired by the Valve Corp. in 2016. He has published 550 conference and journal papers, received 16 best paper or test-of-time awards, and supervised 54 Ph.D. students.

Manocha is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

He earned his B. Tech. in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Srinivasan joined UMD’s Department of Computer Science in 2001 as an associate professor. He has a joint appointment in UMIACS.

His research focuses on randomized algorithms and probabilistic methods, with applications to machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, e-commerce, social networks and public health. He has published nearly 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals and refereed conferences, and he has advised 17 graduate students.

Recently, Srinivasan began leading the computational foundations part of a new National Science Foundation Expeditions project to explore trends in globalization, antimicrobial resistance, urbanization and ecological pressures—factors that have converged to increase the risk of global pandemics like COVID-19. Key to this work is the development of new machine learning algorithms that can interpret large amounts of data from multiple sources over multiple networks.

Srinivasan is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Mathematical Society (AMS), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).

He received his B. Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and his master’s and Ph.D. from Cornell University—all in computer science.