Prof. Prashant J. Shenoy - Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Prof. Prashant J. Shenoy

B.Tech., Computer Science & Engineering, 1993

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNUS AWARDEE | 2026

Prof. Prashant Shenoy is currently a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. He also serves as Director of the Center for Smart and Sustainable Society and as Principal Investigator and Director of a six-university, $12 million NSF Expeditions Center on Computational Decarbonization.

After obtaining his B.Tech. from IIT Bombay, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal, he went on to earn his M.S. (1994) and Ph.D. (1998) in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin, USA.

Prof. Shenoy joined the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1998 as an Assistant Professor and rose steadily through the ranks to become a Distinguished Professor. Over the years, he has also served as Associate Dean in the College of Information and Computer Science for more than a decade. His research interests span distributed systems and networking, with an emphasis on cloud computing, sustainable computing, and AI systems.

Over a three-decade career, Prof. Shenoy has made foundational contributions to distributed systems, cloud computing, and sustainability. He pioneered dynamic capacity provisioning—now widely known as elastic scaling—which enables cloud systems to automatically adapt to fluctuating demand and is deployed at scale by major cloud providers worldwide. His doctoral research laid early technical foundations for internet video streaming, influencing technologies that today serve billions of users. His work has further advanced AI-driven approaches for smart energy systems, buildings, healthcare, and transportation.

In recent years, he has emerged as an international leader in sustainable computing, developing techniques to improve data-centre energy efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint of AI workloads. He serves on a National Academy of Engineering forum on AI and Climate Change and co-founded ACM SIGEnergy to foster interdisciplinary research at the intersection of computing and energy. He has also strengthened US–India collaborations through Fulbright-supported research partnerships, joint teaching initiatives with IIT Bombay, and co-authoring a textbook on smart energy management.

His research has been recognised with two ACM Test of Time Awards and 25 Best Paper or Best Paper finalist awards. Additional honours include the UTCS Best Dissertation Award, UMass President’s Science and Technology Award, NSF CAREER Award, IBM Faculty Award, Google Faculty Award, AT&T VURI Award, Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellowship, and a NASA Innovation Award. He is a Fellow of the ACM, IEEE, AAAS, and AAIA. Nineteen of his former Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars are now faculty members at leading universities worldwide, including one who is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay.

Interests & Hobbies: I enjoy reading, running, landscape photography, and travel.

A Personal Note: My brother-in-law and my Ph.D advisor both are IITB alums (both B.Tech ’87), and my Ph.D advisor is also an IITB Distinguished alum.

Special Memories of IIT Bombay

My IIT Bombay years and my teachers have had a profound impact on shaping my life and career. Prof. Dhamdhere was my B.Tech. project advisor and his emphasis on high standards and his advice to always stay connected with India and its heritage influenced me greatly. I fondly remember the long hours spent in the basement of the CSE department working on his compiler project and learning about research. The long debates at Hostel Five with my classmates and wing mates, the canteen food, and the beautiful lake sunsets are all memories that are forever etched in my heart.