We are pleased to announce that Rajesh K. Gupta, founding director of the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (HDSI), has been appointed dean of the School of Computing, Information and Data Sciences (SCIDS), effective July 1, 2025.
Gupta, a distinguished professor and former chair in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the Jacobs School of Engineering, has served as the SCIDS interim dean since July 2024, and served as the HDSI director since the institute’s inauguration in 2018. He also held the Qualcomm Endowed Chair in Embedded Microsystems and served as the Associate Director of the Qualcomm Institute.
Gupta played a critical role in the development of UC San Diego’s newest school and will continue to shepherd SCIDS, which combines the operational capabilities in high-performance and data-intensive computing of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), with the academic strengths of HDSI in the areas of data science and artificial intelligence. SCIDS will have strong academic interactions involving all UC San Diego departments and schools. This collaboration will support the goal of transforming data into knowledge through development of data and information science, advancing innovative computing paradigms, and developing new contextual learning algorithms and methodologies that can transform society.
While working as director of HDSI, Gupta demonstrated his ability to work across disciplines and was instrumental in establishing HDSI as an academic unit on campus, leading the launch of master’s and Ph.D. programs in data science and forging essential partnerships with industry leaders and international partners.
Gupta’s research interests are in embedded and cyber-physical systems with an emphasis on sensor data organization and its use in optimization of timing and energy from algorithms, devices and systems that scale from IC chips and data centers to built environments such as smart buildings. Methods and tools he developed for the design of microelectronic chips now are used in standard practice for building semiconductor systems on chips. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest general science organization in the United States, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). In 2019, Gupta was the recipient of the W. Wallace McDowell Award in recognition of his “seminal contributions in design and implementation of Microelectronic Systems-on-Chip and Cyber-Physical Systems.”
We would like to extend a special thank you to School of Physical Sciences Dean Chris Hrycyna, who served as chair, and all the members of the Search Advisory Committee for their dedication to a thorough, thoughtful selection process that included a diversity of voices and perspectives.
We invite the campus community to join us in congratulating Rajesh Gupta on his permanent appointment to this important role.
