Sunita Chandrasekaran, associate professor of computer and information sciences at the University of Delaware, has received the 2025 SIGHPC Emerging Woman Leader in Technical Computing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest computing society.
At the University of Delaware, Dr. Chandrasekaran holds the David L. and Beverly J.C. Mills Career Development Chair and directs the recently launched First State AI Institute. Outside of academia, she is vice chair of the state of Delaware’s AI Commission and contributes to the Advanced Scientific Computing Advisory Committee at the U.S. Department of Energy. Her research has led to advancements in exascale computing, an emerging supercomputing tool that can significantly streamline complex scientific research.
“Sunita exemplifies the spirit of this award, blending technical excellence with community leadership,” said Michela Taufer, chair of the award committee. “Her innovative work on GPU-accelerated, AI-driven workflows is reshaping how we approach exascale computing, while her mentorship and service ensure these advancements uplift the broader high-performance computing community.”
Dr. Chandrasekaran earned her doctorate from Nanyang Technical University in Singapore and her bachelor’s degree from Anna University in India. She completed postdoctoral training at the University of Houston in Texas.


