6 Faculty Members Join UMD’s Department of Computer Science
The University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science is welcoming six faculty members during the 2026-27 academic year, adding research and teaching expertise in high-performance computing, computer networks, computer vision, artificial intelligence, data science and software systems. The appointments include four tenure-track faculty members and two professional-track lecturers joining in fall 2026 and spring 2027.
“We’re thrilled to welcome these new faculty members to the department,” said Department Chair Matthias Zwicker, who holds the Elizabeth Iribe Chair for Innovation and the Phillip H. and Catherine C. Horvitz Professorship. “Their expertise will strengthen research and education across the department, and we are very much looking forward to supporting their work at UMD.”
Huang’s research focuses on high-performance computing and systems, with an emphasis on data compression, fault tolerance and parallel computing. His work examines software systems for large-scale scientific computing and artificial intelligence workloads, including GPU-based data reduction, software-directed error resilience and systems support for machine learning.
He has also studied data compression for high-performance scientific computing through collaborations with researchers at Argonne National Laboratory. That work included applications in light source science and seismic imaging involving researchers from Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source and Saudi Aramco’s EXPEC Advanced Research Center.
Huang received the 2025 ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship and was named a 2026 MLCommons ML and Systems Rising Star. His work also received best paper awards and finalist recognition at SC 2022, SC 2024, ICS 2025 and LDAV 2025.
He earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Iowa. Huang joined the department as an assistant professor in fall 2026, with a joint appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS).
Gupta’s research examines computer vision in complex environments and the policy implications of dual-use artificial intelligence. His work has included applications in post-disaster damage assessment following the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake and the detection of illicit maritime activity. He also studies how AI technologies are incorporated into civilian and military systems.
Gupta previously served as technical director for autonomy at the Defense Innovation Unit and held research and policy roles involving AI, security and human rights. Before his doctoral studies, he led an AI-focused humanitarian research lab at Carnegie Mellon University and contributed to real-time machine learning work for Apple Vision Pro.
He earned his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. Gupta joined the department as an assistant professor in fall 2026 with a joint appointment in the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM).
Liu’s research focuses on computer vision systems designed to operate in dynamic and physical environments. His work examines how visual systems can understand and interact with changing real-world settings.
He has developed open-source models and datasets that have been downloaded and reused by researchers and developers. His research has also been discussed in technical communities and public media.
Liu earned his doctorate in computer science from Columbia University.
He joined the department as an assistant professor in fall 2026.
Salamatian’s research focuses on measuring and understanding the internet despite limited visibility into its decentralized infrastructure. His work develops methods to determine what network properties can be inferred from partial observations and establishes theoretical guarantees for those conclusions.
He applies those methods to study how geopolitical events and other disruptions affect internet connectivity and network structure. His research also examines how network measurements can help diagnose performance problems and support more resilient infrastructure.
His work received a Best of CCR recognition from ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review and was selected as a Communications of the ACM Research Highlight.
He earned his doctorate in computer science from Columbia University. Salamatian will join the department as an assistant professor in spring 2027.
Abla's interests span artificial intelligence, software engineering and data science. His work includes building AI and machine learning platforms, developing enterprise data analytics products and creating generative AI applications.
His technical background includes data and AI platforms, GPU-based machine learning acceleration libraries, large-scale data engineering systems for real-time analytics and distributed software designed for supercomputing environments. He has also taught computer science courses in artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing and algorithm design.
Abla earned a master's degree in computer science from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and an MBA from the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business.
Abla will join the department as a lecturer in spring 2027.
Perrin’s teaching and technical interests include artificial intelligence, scalable architectures and high-performance computing. She has taught courses in agentic artificial intelligence, big data systems and data science.
Perrin has more than 15 years of technology industry experience, including work at Google, Capital One and Lockheed Martin.
She earned a master’s degree in computer science from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree in physical sciences from the University of Maryland, with studies in electrical engineering, mathematics and physics. Perrin is a two-time recipient of the DCFemTech Powerful Women Programmers Award.
Perrin joined the department as a lecturer in fall 2026 and teaches in the University of Maryland Science Academy’s graduate programs.
—Story by Samuel Malede Zewdu, CS Communications
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