Shamik Sengupta, an Indian American Computer Science & Engineering (CSE) Professor, has been appointed the new CSE chair at University of Nevada, Reno’s College of Engineering
His term will begin July 1, 2026. He replaces outgoing CSE chair Professor Eelke Folmer, whose term will end June 30, according to a university release.
University President Brian Sandoval also named Electrical & Biomedical Engineering (EBME) Professor Bahram Parvin as the EBME department chair.
“I look forward to working with Dr. Sengupta and Dr. Parvin as chairs of their respective departments,” Engineering Dean Tom Weller said. “As the College works toward continued excellence in education and research, I’m excited for all that we will accomplish together. I am also grateful for the service and dedication of our outgoing chairs, Dr. Folmer in CSE and Dr. Sami Fadali in EBME.”
READ: Dev Chidambaram wins national award for corrosion science research (
Sengupta holds Engineering’s Ralph E. and Rose A. Hoeper Professorship and is the executive director of the University’s Cybersecurity Center. His expertise in game theory, wireless networking and cybersecurity is the foundation for his current work on cyber-physical systems and adversarial modeling.
He joined the University in 2013, coming from City University of New York, where he received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award in 2012.
During his tenure in Reno, Sengupta has been the recipient of 12 NSF grants; the CSE Best Researcher award in 2016, 2018 and 2022; and Engineering’s Excellence Award in 2018.
In 2018, his alma mater, the University of Central Florida, honored Sengupta with its College of Engineering and Computer Science Distinguished Alumni Honor award.
READ: Texas, Oklahoma, and Nevada woo corporations with new business-friendly laws (
He is also the recipient of UNR College of Engineering Excellence Award 2018; and the UNR Ralph E. & Rose A. Hoeper Professorship Award 2019.
He is also Honorary Commander of the 152 Communications Flight at the Nevada Air National Guard Base, a distinction awarded in 2022.
His research emphasizes on various cybersecurity issues such as vulnerability assessment and malware analysis, security and privacy in cybersecurity information exchange, anomaly detection in cyber-physical systems, machine Learning, network security, honeypot as well as cognitive radio and DSA networks, game theory, network economics and self-configuring wireless mesh networks.
He has authored over 150 international conferences and journal publications including IEEE GLOBECOM 2008 best paper award, International Symposium on Performance Evaluation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (SPECTS) 2017 best paper award and IEEE CCWC 2020 best paper award.