Chancellor’s Dissertation Medal Recipient and CSE Service and Leadership Award

Evan Johnson received the CSE 2026 Dissertation Award and Chancellor’s Dissertation Medal (“Verifiably Secure Software Sandboxing”) and Sumanth Rao received the CSE 2026 Service and Leadership Award (with a record 15 nominations!).

The Chancellor’s Dissertation Medal is a prestigious award recognizing exceptional doctoral research. Recipients of this award are chosen based upon the quality and creativity of the research as well as the clarity of the dissertation. All doctoral students who defended their dissertation and finalized their degree paperwork between April 2025 and March 2026 were eligible to be nominated. Evan Johnson, who will soon be on faculty at New York University, focuses on solving hard security problems in real-world systems using lightweight, practical verification. He was advised by CNS faculty Deian Stefan and Stefan Savage. Congratulations to both Sumanth and Evan!