Arthur C. Graesser Presidential Award for Lifetime Achievement in Research
The Arthur C. Graesser Presidential Award for Lifetime Achievement in Research is the highest level of research recognition available to University of Memphis faculty and was established during the University's Centennial in 2013, when it was first awarded to Dr. Arthur C. Graesser on February 28, 2012. The award is given periodically to a full professor who has made significant contributions to the research enterprise and reputation of the University through an exemplary and sustained record of academic scholarship, research collaboration, mentoring, and university citizenship. This article in its entirety, was taken from the 2023 Research Celebration program.
Dipankar Dasgupta, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Director of Center
for Information Assurance
Dr. Dasgupta, a widely admired higher education teacher and distinguished scholar, received the 2022 Arthur C. Presidential Award for Lifetime Achievement in Research. He is a Full Professor of Computer Science at the University of Memphis and joined the University of Memphis (UoM) in January 1997 and became a Full Professor in 2004. The Arthur C. Graesser Presidential Award for Lifetime Achievement in Research is given periodically to a full professor who has made significant contributions to the research enterprise and reputation of the University through an exemplary and sustained record of academic scholarship, research collaboration, mentoring, and university citizenship. Dr. Dasgupta has been significantly involved in research, education, and service activities.
Dr. Dasgupta developed pioneering research in Al-based cybersecurity with applications that include digital immunity, negative authentication, Cloud Insurance models, and Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication. He has held over 400 international research talks in many countries as an expert in the scientific community. His 2017 interview on computational intelligence in cybersecurity with Dr. David Fogel highlights his engaged scholarship in the field. Dasgupta's innovative research generated four issued patents and two patent applications, several of which have received federal funding and were licensed.
His most recent patent (Nov 2022) was awarded for a multi-user permission strategy to access sensitive information. Some of his recent accomplishments include his election as a prestigious National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow for the Class of 2022 and national leadership of a 15-University Consortium and presentation of their work at DoD University Consortium for Cybersecurity (UC2) Research Workshop hosted by the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington,DC.
Dr. Dasgupta developed pioneering research in AI-based cybersecurity with applications that include digital immunity, negative authentication, Cloud Insurance models, and Adaptive MultiFactor Authentication. He is on the editorial board of five proceedings/journals and has around three hundred research papers in book chapters, journals, and international conference proceedings.
In 2007, Dr. Dasgupta was awarded the University’s College of Arts & Sciences’ Dunavant Professorship, a 3-year award for exceptional teaching, scholarship, service, and outreach achievement. He received the College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Research Award twice (2002, 2006), the Sigma Xi Research Paper Award (2003), and the Early Career Research Award (1999). He is the recipient of the Dr. Pat E. Burlison’s Professorship and the 2012 Willard R. Sparks Eminent Faculty Award, the highest distinction and most prestigious honor given to a faculty member by the University of Memphis. He is a William Hill Cybersecurity Professor at the University of Memphis. Among other professional recognitions, Dasgupta is an IEEE Fellow, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Life member, was an ACM Distinguished Speaker (2015-2020), IEEE Secure Learning Taskforce, and is currently appointed as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer (2022-2024).
He has held over 400 international research talks in many countries as an expert in the scientific community. His 2017 interview on computational intelligence in cybersecurity with Dr. David Fogel highlights his engaged scholarship in the field. Dasgupta’s innovative research generated four issued patents and two patent applications, several of which have received federal funding and were licensed. His most recent patent (Nov 2022) was awarded for a multi-user permission strategy to access sensitive information. Some of his recent accomplishments include his election as a prestigious National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow for the Class of 2022 and national leadership of a 15-University Consortium and presentation of their work at DoD University Consortium for Cybersecurity (UC2) Research Workshop hosted by the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, DC. He also served as a Co-Chair of the IEEE Computational Intelligence in Cybersecurity (CICS) Symposium in Singapore from Dec. 4-7, 2022 where he presented a tutorial on “Machine Learning Applications, Adversarial Attacks, and Mitigation Strategies.”
But, most importantly, if you ask Dr. Dasgupta what his greatest accomplishment is, he says it is not about his actions. His inspiration transfers his passion for the subject matter to students. Along with his knowledge transfer, accessibility, career guidance, quality of life, and feedback to his students, he inspires others and is dedicated to student success, which includes practicum experience. He supervised more than one hundred graduate and undergraduate students, including fourteen doctoral, five post-doctoral, and fifty master’s students. His advisees are in highly technical positions at technology industry leaders including Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Discover Bank, Facebook, and Adobe. Some stories of his student successes are available from the CfIA website.
Congratulations, Dr. Dasgupta!