Our Bureau
Albuquerque, NM
The School of Engineering, University of New Mexico is proud to announce Pavithra Prabhakar as the Cleve Moler and MathWorks Endowed Chair in Mathematical and Engineering Software.
Prabhakar will join UNM in December from Kansas State University, where she is currently a professor and the Peggy and Gary Edwards Chair in Engineering. For the last three years, she served as a program director at the National Science Foundation in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate, where she managed a research portfolio exceeding $100 million among more than 200 principal investigators and projects.
“We are delighted to welcome Professor Pavithra Prabhakar as our inaugural MathWorks Endowed Chair in Mathematical and Engineering Software,” Shuang (Sean) Luan, acting chair of the Department of Computer Science, said.
Prabhakar’s research focuses on trust in AI-enabled autonomous, cyber-physical and robotic systems. She looks forward to collaborating with UNM faculty across disciplines and with experts at the nearby national laboratories, she said.
“UNM is an incredible place with excellent faculty. Given that I work at the intersection of computer science, engineering and math, I am looking forward to the collaborations I can build here,” Prabhakar said. “I’m particularly excited about the opportunity to build a strong research and education program in trustworthy AI and autonomy.”
“As the birthplace of MATLAB, the UNM Computer Science Department is deeply grateful for MathWorks’ generous gift to establish this endowed professorship,” said Donna Riley, Jim and Ellen King Dean of Engineering and Computing.
“It is a great honor to be named to a chair that recognizes Cleve Moler, the founder of MathWorks and a pioneer in mathematical and engineering software,” Prabhakar said. “His work has had a lasting impact on how we approach computing in science and engineering, and I’m proud to be associated with a position that reflects that legacy.”
Prabhakar earned a master’s degree in Applied Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She also holds a master’s degree in Computer Science and Automation from the Indian Institute of Science and a bachelor’s degree from the National Institute of Technology, Warangal.
