Zwicker to Continue Leading UMD’s Department of Computer Science

Following a national search, Professor Matthias Zwicker has been reappointed chair of the University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science for a four-year term, effective July 1, 2024.

Zwicker, who has an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), has been chair of the department since 2020.

“I am grateful for the leadership Matthias has demonstrated over the past four years and support his vision for his next term,” said Amitabh Varshney, dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. “His commitment to students and impactful research has helped to further the University of Maryland's position as a Top 10 public university in computer science.”

As chair, he oversees one of the largest computer science programs in the country, with more than 3,800 undergraduates who can pursue a specialization in cybersecurity, data science, machine learning and quantum information. More than 850 of them are women, making it one of the largest female computer science populations in the country.

“I am honored to continue leading our outstanding department with its fantastic faculty, staff and students, and I am proud of all our achievements over the last four years,” said Zwicker. “With the immense challenges and opportunities before us in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, computational biology, virtual reality and many other fields, it has never been a more fascinating time to work in computer science.”

Zwicker joined UMD in 2017 as the Reginald Allan Hahne Endowed E-Nnovate Professor in Computer Science with a joint appointment in UMIACS. Before arriving in College Park, he was a professor of computer science at the University of Bern from 2008 to 2017, where he served as the head of the computer graphics group and the director of graduate and undergraduate studies at its Institute of Computer Science.

Zwicker received an ETH Silver Medal for his 2003 Ph.D. in computer science from ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, and completed postdoctoral research at MIT.

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