School of Computing professor Manish Parashar, who is the director of the University of Utah’s Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, was recently named Presidential Professor.

The title of Presidential Professor is reserved for those with achievements that “exemplify the highest goals of scholarship as demonstrated by recognition accorded to them from peers with national and international stature and whose record includes evidence of a high dedication to teaching.”

Parashar is a world-renowned leader in computer and computational science. In addition to taking over SCI in 2021, he is also director of the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure with the National Science Foundation, co-chair of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Task Force, and co-chair of the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on the Future Advanced Computing Ecosystem.

Parashar earned a master’s degree and doctorate from Syracuse University, each in computer engineering. He was a Distinguished Professor of computer science at Rutgers University before coming to the U in 2020.

In addition to serving as a Distinguished Professor at Rutgers, he is the founding director of the Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute and served as associate vice president of its Office of Advanced Research Computing. He was also co-director of the Cloud & Autonomic Computing Center and associate director of the Center for Information Assurance.

He was elevated to an IEEE Fellow in 2011, a Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012, and a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery in 2020. He was awarded the IEEE T&C Distinguished Leadership Award in 2021.

SCI is a campus research center where over 185 faculty, staff, and students — most from the U’s College of Engineering — work together to shape the future of advanced computing. Since its founding, more than 100 undergraduates and 400 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows have worked on SCI research projects.