Two Indian American faculty members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have been selected as recipients of the 2026 University Teaching Awards.
Chancellor Lee H. Roberts and interim Provost Jim Dean announced 27 campus-wide honorees selected from over 1,000 nominations submitted across academic units.
Snehalkumar “Neil” S. Gaikwad and Montek Singh both received the Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, an honor celebrating exceptional commitment to student instruction and mentorship.
Gaikwad serves as an assistant professor in UNC’s School of Data Science and Society and holds an appointment in the Department of Computer Science.
A native of India who lived in Indonesia, Singapore, Austria, and the United States, Gaikwad earned a Bachelor of Applied Science degree from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore before completing master’s degrees and a doctorate in society-centered artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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At UNC, he serves as the founding director of the Society-Centered AI Lab, where his research focuses on human-AI collaborative systems, machine learning, algorithmic fairness, and technological policy.
Singh is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science. He earned his Bachelor of Technology degree in electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, followed by a Master of Science and a doctorate in computer science from Columbia University in New York.
Singh joined the UNC Chapel Hill faculty in 2001, where his research specializes in high-speed asynchronous pipelines, digital circuit design, microelectronic timing, and computer architecture.
Both educators represent the contributions of Indian-origin academics in American higher education. Their recognition showcases the impact of rigorous research and dedicated undergraduate teaching across data science and computing at Carolina.