Dean's Dispatch: July 1, 2026

Dear GT Computing community,  

I hope everyone is enjoying the summer. Despite the heat, I hope you had a wonderful Juneteenth holiday and are now looking forward to celebrating Independence Day. Although these holidays commemorate different moments in our nation’s history, they are united by enduring themes of freedom, independence, and the resilience and perseverance required to achieve them. Those are values we all hold dear.

Financial Update 

With Fiscal Year 2027 starting today, it is an appropriate time to remember that financial sustainability is an important aspect of independence. On that note, I would like to briefly reflect on the financial health of our College. When I started my role as Dean in June 2024, we had a financial crisis with a deficit of $6.6M as we closed out the College’s FY24 budget. We mitigated that deficit by using our reserves, carrying forward a loan to FY25, and getting some additional help from the Institute. Many of our expenses in FY25 were also predetermined at that time, and we were faced with a deficit of $5.3M in our FY25 budget. That too had to be mitigated by using more of our reserves and carrying forward a loan to FY26. 

The austerity measures that we started taking in FY25 positioned us well for FY26. I am proud to share that we have balanced our budget in FY26 with a net surplus, while fully paying back our outstanding loan to the Institute. With our new financial projection and financial planning processes in place, I am committed to ensuring that we will never face a budget deficit again in the future. This is important not only for our financial health but also for our future autonomy and agency. I would be glad to share more details in meetings with schools and other units in the College. The main takeaway is that of thanks to all faculty and staff for the great teamwork that enabled us to turn around a challenging situation so rapidly. I would also like to thank all our faculty leaders and staff leaders for their hard work in bringing about this change, with special thanks to our Finance Director, Ben Powell, and Senior Associate Dean, Srinivas Aluru. 

David White 

Speaking of freedom, I have a big announcement to make regarding a true free spirit: David White’s retirement from Georgia Tech starts today, July 1. This is hard to believe for many reasons, including the fact that David is a legend whose connection with our College started with his graduating with an MS-HCI degree in 2003. Since then, he has held multiple leadership roles in the College that have spanned Academic Advising, the OMSCS program, and our Graduate Programs. Since becoming Dean, I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to meet with David on a weekly basis -- I benefited greatly from his vast institutional knowledge of our College and his inimitable sense of humor. We will plan a suitable farewell event for David this Fall. Meanwhile, please join me in thanking David for all that he has done for the College and wishing him the very best for his retirement. David has also provided me with this short message to share with all of you, which I am sure you will enjoy! 

"Today I realized how much I have in common with Babe Ruth: love of hot dogs, growing inability to remember names, and 22 years in the majors. And so, like the Bambino, I have decided to retire.

I could go on for pages and hours about what Georgia Tech and CoC have done for me and to me, but I will save that for when we get together in the fall for a farewell, perhaps including a proper roast, songs, pantomime, even a short film. 

So have a great rest of the summer, and I’ll see you then. In the meantime, thanks for everything, especially the pension.” 

David Joyner

And speaking of free-spirited Davids, please join me in congratulating David Joyner in his new role as Georgia Tech’s interim vice provost for AI in Education, effective today (see announcement email from the Provost below). As announced, David will continue to serve as executive director of the Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program but will step down from his current role as associate dean for Off-Campus and Special Initiatives in the College of Computing. Since this is currently an interim position for David, I do not plan to appoint a replacement for his associate dean role right away. A major part of the associate dean role overlaps with David's OMSCS executive director role which will continue. The remaining duties for Off-Campus and Special Initiatives will be undertaken by other associate deans, including Fisayo Omojokun in his role as associate dean for Undergraduate Education, and Elizabeth Cherry in her role as associate dean for Graduate Education. 

One of the first major initiatives Raheem launched after stepping into the Provost role was the development of an institute-wide strategy for AI in Education. When he shared with me that David was his first choice to lead this effort, I viewed it not only as a recognition of David’s exceptional leadership, but also of the excellence that he and the entire OMSCS team have built within our College. David and I have spoken at length about this transition, and we are both fully committed to ensuring that OMSCS and its team continues their remarkable trajectory without interruption. Congratulations, David — we know that you will do our College proud in this new role and all that you do!

Kudos 

Finally, and as always, I have great news to share from across the College:  

• Paul Fowler, Director of Career Services in the College of Computing, has recently been appointed to the newly formed Computing Research Association Leadership Team for the CRA Career Services Affinity Group. Paul will serve as a founding member of the team whose purpose is to create a computing-specific peer community focused on the rapid change in computing careers, evolving employer expectations, and growing complexity of supporting students in computing programs. Last month, Paul moderated the first of a three-part CRA summer series, Technical Recruiting in 2026, hosting a discussion among technical recruiters and career services professionals. In addition to his appointment with the CRA, Paul has also been appointed as a Board Member for the Georgia Association of Colleges and Employers. In this role, he will coordinate the annual GACE Innovation Crawl where GACE members spend the day visiting multiple technically innovative companies in Atlanta. Congratulations, Paul, and thanks for your leadership in this vital area for the future of Computing students!
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• Nimisha Roy (SCI) recently represented ACM on a national committee convened by the Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) to develop a shared framework for defining AI and computer science education across the PK–20 educational continuum. The committee brought together leaders from higher education, K–12 schools, industry, and professional organizations to create practical guidance for educators and policymakers on what constitutes AI and computing education, how AI fits within CS, and why foundational computing knowledge remains essential in the age of AI. The resulting national guidance, endorsed by ACM, will be disseminated to education leaders at the CSTA Conference and the CRA Summit later this month to support future curriculum and policy decisions.
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• Our collaboration with Dolby Labs continues in FY27. All seven existing projects will continue to receive funding, and we have added an eighth project as well. Steve Mussman (SCS) has rwill receive funding for his project titled, “Developing Automatic Data Curation Pipelines for Training and Fine-Tuning Foundation Models.” Congratulations to Steve, and to all of the faculty members who received renewed funding -- Joy Arulraj (SCS), Nat Condit-Schultz (Music), Chin-Hui Lee (ECE), Aditya Prakash (CSE), Kexin Rong (SCS), Humphrey Shi (IC), and Yalong Yang (IC)!  And special thanks to Humphrey for his technical leadership of this strategic partnership with a valuable industry partner! 
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• Abir Haque (Ph.D. CSE) received a Department of Energy Computational Graduate Fellowship. Abir will not only receive financial support, but also a week-long practicum experience at DOE with access to DOE’s supercomputers. Congratulations to Abir, and congratulations to his advisor Edmond Chow! 
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• Anya Martin (Ph.D., IC) has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to continue her dissertation research fieldwork, which is on the use of AI for meteorological sciences in India. The Fulbright Program is U.S. government’s flagship international exchange initiative. Congratulations, Anya, and best of luck with your research!  Congratulations also to Anya’s advisor, Cindy Lin! 
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• Speaking of Fulbrights, Pedro Feijoo Garcia (SCI) is an alumnus of the program. He recently spoke on a panel on “Networks, Grants and the Scientific Diaspora: Toward a Binational Innovation Ecosystem,” at the NAFSA conference. The panel was attended by representatives of the U.S. Embassy in Colombia, the Colombian Consulate, and delegates from the U.S. Department of State. Congratulations Pedro, and thank you for your international efforts! 
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• Yiqiao (Ahren) Jin (CSE) was selected as a 2026 ML Commons Rising Star. Congratulations to Ahren, and to his advisor Srijan Kumar! 
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• The ACM Distributed Event Based Systems (ACM DEBS) 10-year Test of Time Award went to Kishore Ramachandran (SCS) and co-authors for the paper entitled, "Incremental Deployment and Migration of Geo-Distributed Situation Awareness Applications in the Fog," which appeared in ACM DEBS 2016. Congratulations to Kishore and co-authors on their lasting contribution!
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• Jun (Jim) Xu (SCS) recently received a Tech Ready Grant, which is an initiative helping Georgia Tech faculty move their innovations toward the market. His project, titled “Research into Applications and API for METTLE,” works to improve data reliability and efficiency for high-speed networking systems. Congratulations Jim — we look forward to seeing where you take this technology next! 
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• Neha Kumar (IC) was re-elected as Chair of the ACM SIG Governing Board (SGB) which oversees all of ACM’s Special Interest Groups (SIGs). As SGB Chair, Neha also serves on ACM’s Executive Committee and Council. Congratulations, Neha, and thanks for your service and leadership in ACM, an organization that is central to the Computing discipline! 
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• Two of our faculty members gave TedX talks recently. Amy Bruckman (IC) spoke on “Reinventing Teaching After the Introduction of AI.” Matthew Gombolay (IC) spoke on the question, “Can Robots have Morals?” Congratulations to Amy and Matthew, and thanks to both of you for sharing your expertise with the public! 
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• Ahmed Saeed (SCS) was quoted in an NPR story about water supply for a data center in the New Mexico desert. He was also interviewed on Radio France International on the more general environmental impact of data centers. Congratulations, Ahmed, and thank you for addressing such a current issue! 
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• Last month, I shared that Arianna Mastali (Ph.D. IC) had built an enrichment system for the elephants at the Atlanta Zoo, and encouraged you to watch this video of the elephants interacting with her creation. I am now glad to share that Arianna was featured on CBS Atlanta for her work. Elephants are very intelligent creatures and need mental stimulation to be happy. Congratulations, Arianna, for such interesting work in animal-computer interaction! 
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• Georgia Tech’s competitive programming team placed seventh at the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) North America Championship (NAC), earning a bronze medal and further cementing its standing among the continent’s elite collegiate teams. Congratulations to the team, and to their advisor, Abrahim Ladha (SCI)! 

 Sincerely,    

Vivek Sarkar
John P. Imlay Jr. Dean, College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
EA: Cynthia Bryant, cebryant@cc.gatech.edu, 404-385-5661