Meet the 2026 Vice President Candidates
All Candidate Names are listed in Random Order.
The opinions expressed in the statements are those of the individual candidates and do not necessarily reflect Computer Society positions or policies.
Saurabh Bagchi
Position statement
With over 20 years as an academic, entrepreneur, and industry practitioner, I stand prepared to be your Vice President. As Chair of Computer Engineering at Purdue’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with 45 faculty members and approximately 2000 students, I guide curriculum and student mentoring to nurture budding technologists. As Director of the Corporate Partnerships Program, I know how to leverage industry goals to align innovation with impact.
First, while on the Board of Governors, I have worked successfully to make CS the natural locus for industry and academia to come together (e.g., through our Student Challenge Competitions). Through specialized programs and events, I will foster joint ventures in roadmapping, standards development, prototype creation, and challenge competitions. Such collaborative efforts will yield immediate benefits and ensure the long-term vitality of our technical communities.
Second, I will energize IEEE CS to become more of a trusted independent voice in technology matters. For this we will train our members to enhance their impact through their leading technical contributions and through greater cooperation with policymakers and standards-making bodies (e.g., IEEE Standards Association). My current leadership of the NSF Center CHORUS and Army’s Artificial Intelligence Innovation Institute has demonstrated my ability to unite researchers, industry partners, and policymakers.
Third, CS must proactively nurture students and young professionals (SYP) to become leaders. Currently leading the CS Juniors and the Student Challenge Competition, I appreciate the role that SYP play to ensure that technology is ultimately a force for good. I will streamline our operations and create easy-to-follow pathways through which our members around the world, far beyond our boardrooms, can contribute to, and then lead, important programs.
Finally, I will amplify our members’ voices, stressing on local, member-initiated events and making our conferences more cost effective.
Please also see https://bagchi.github.io/ieee.html
Biography
Saurabh Bagchi is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science at Purdue University, USA. He is the Co-Founder and CTO of a cloud computing startup KeyByte (2022-present) and previously successfully led SensorHound Innovations (2013-15). His research contributions are in secure and reliable computing.
Saurabh got involved with IEEE CS early on as an undergraduate at IIT Kharagpur—leading the IEEE CS Student Chapter—and has maintained active involvement ever since. Elected twice to the IEEE CS Board of Governors (2017-20, 2022–2024), he leads CS Student Challenge Competitions and co-chairs the CS Juniors Program. He has organized multiple academia–industry workshops at IEEE conferences, shaping roadmaps for security, assured autonomy, and CPS resilience.
Academically, Saurabh leads the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center CHORUS (2024-29) and the Army’s Artificial Intelligence Innovation Institute (A2I2) (2020-present). Both involve partnerships with multiple universities, industrial organizations, and policymakers. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) (2022), a nominated member of IFIP (2020), awarded IEEE CS Golden Core (2017) and Distinguished Contributor (2021), and a Humboldt Fellow (2018).
Saurabh is proudest of the 25 PhD and 30 Masters thesis students who have graduated from his group and who have co-authored 13 best papers (or runner-ups) at premier IEEE/ACM conferences. Saurabh received his MS and PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his BS from IIT Kharagpur, all in Computer Science. He maintains strong connections to India, serving as International Visiting Faculty at IIT Kharagpur and IIT Bombay. On a personal level, he has been a 20+ year volunteer with Asha for Education, which provides basic education to underprivileged children in India and has branches at all major US universities. He delights in hiking with his family on off-the-beaten paths and playing tennis on any imaginable surface.
Terry Benzel
Position statement
If elected as Vice President of the Computer Society, I will collaborate closely with the President to advance the IEEE Computer Society’s (CS) Strategic Plan under development. Drawing upon decades of volunteer experience in CS conferences and publications, including a two-year tenure as VP of T&C, I am committed to fostering the ethical integrity of our conferences and publications.
Recent years have seen an increase in ethical violations within conference management, such as issues with program committee composition, conflicts of interest, deliberate collusion, and even counterfeit conferences. These challenges threaten the CS’s reputation and the communities we serve. To address this, I propose convening a working group comprising leaders from disparate conferences and research domains, the VP of T&C, and the CS conference and publishing staff. This group’s mission will be to develop standardized processes and guidelines to uphold ethical standards across our 200 conferences. Developing these is not enough. We also need to educate and socialize to a higher standard. I will explore new training material and interactive webinars to promulgate these new approaches.
Beyond ethics, engaging students and young professionals is crucial. Conferences offer a gateway for these members to contribute as volunteers. I have a history of supporting Student and Young Professional (SYP) initiatives and will continue to collaborate with the T&C Board to craft innovative communication strategies that create pathways for all SYPs to engage.
Finally, I will leverage my experience on the BOG and my extensive background in academia and industry to forge new partnerships that support CS Strategy Goal 3: bridging the gap between research, industry, and society. We must transform conferences to better represent and include differing constituents.
I am deeply passionate about the CS’s mission and believe we are uniquely positioned to provide valuable services and cultivate communities for all members.
Biography
I am the Associate Director of the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California. I manage all aspects of operations and strategic direction. I am responsible for finance, contracting, purchasing, IT, administrative staff, and communications/marketing.
Previously, as Director of Networking and Cybersecurity Research at ISI, I managed a team of 70 researchers, faculty, students, and staff, responsible for research directions, development of research proposals to government funding agencies, and management of execution and finances. I led the DETER Cybersecurity Testbed and Experimentation program.
I am a recognized leader in advanced technology, spanning government research labs, startups, industry, and academia. In multiple director roles, I’ve led teams of 50-150 people and managed budgets up to $80M. As a strategic thinker, I contribute to business and organizational strategy and serve on advisory boards for leading organizations, helping shape their research and business agendas.
I served in multiple positions for the Computer Society, starting with Security and Privacy Conferences in the 1980s. Subsequently, I served in positions on the Technical Committee for IEEE Security and Privacy. Later, I joined the editorial board of the IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine. As a senior editorial board member, I was responsible for curating special issues highlighting the IEEE Computer Society Conferences. I am in my second term on the Board of Governors (2021- 2023, 2024 – 2026) and second term as VP for T&Cs.
I am an IEEE Fellow and have received Computer Society awards for Golden Core, AEIC Outstanding Service, Outstanding Community Service, Continuing Service, as well as awards from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and testified twice before the U.S. Congress in 2001 and 2013.
I hold an Executive MBA, University of California, Los Angeles, 1996, and an M.A., Mathematics and Computer Science, Boston University, 1982
Cyril Onwubiko
Position statement
My first goal is to deepen academic participation while expanding engagement with industry. As Vice President of the Professional & Educational Activities Board (2023–2025), we’ve led several impactful initiatives. Notably, we co-developed the Computer Science 2023 Curriculum in collaboration with ACM and AAAI—now a foundational global resource for higher education institutions. Since its completion in 2024, adoption has steadily increased worldwide; for instance, The American University in Cairo (Egypt) and the University of Victoria (Canada) are actively revising their programs based on this curriculum, along with more than 10 other institutions. We also successfully launched SWEBOK v4, CS4Industry, and the Career Catalyst Program, each designed to serve both academic and industry professionals. These initiatives underscore our commitment to fostering collaboration and forging new alliances. My 20+ years industry experience, coupled with active engagement in public policy/cross-sector collaboration, position me well to further this mission.
My second goal is to build and sustain a robust pipeline for nurturing the next generation of Computer Society members. To this end, under my leadership, we launched the Computer Society Junior Program—a global initiative aimed at engaging and inspiring K–12 students. The program has already hosted events in countries such as Uruguay, Mexico, Tunisia, and Japan. In conjunction with the Student & Young Professionals (SYP) community, CS Junior is helping create a continuum of engagement that fosters generational and intellectual diversity within our Society.
My third goal is not only to ensure that the IEEE Computer Society remains relevant in a rapidly evolving technological landscape, but to position it as a global leader and trusted authority on emerging technologies. We aim to be a force multiplier for frontier innovation, with ongoing contributions in generative AI (GenAI), computer vision, software and systems engineering for AI (SE4AI), and multimodal AI systems and engineering.
Biography
Dr. Cyril Onwubiko is the Business Information Security Officer (BISO) at Barclays, where he leads cybersecurity for the Cross-Barclays Digital Platform (XDP) and the Chief Technology Office (CTO). With 20+ years of industry experience in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain, having previously held senior positions at Pearson, the UK Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions, and Lloyds Banking Group, among others.
An engaged and long-serving member of the IEEE community, Dr. Onwubiko is a Senior Member of IEEE and currently serves as Vice President, Professional and Educational Activities Board (PEAB) for 2024–2025. He is a former member of the Board of Governors (2022–2024), Distinguished Contributor, and Distinguished Speaker (2020–2022) of the IEEE Computer Society. Previously served as Secretary, IEEE UK & Ireland Section and Founding Chair, IEEE UK & Ireland Blockchain Group. For over 15 years, he has held several additional leadership roles, including: Executive Committee Member, IEEE UK & Ireland Computer Society Chapter; Member, IEEE European Public Policy Committee (EPPC) Working Group on ICT; Reviewer, IEEE Security & Privacy and IEEE Intelligence & Security Informatics (ISI); Contributor, IEEE Young Professionals, Women in Engineering; Guest Editor, IEEE HKN (The BRIDGE).
Dr. Onwubiko is a graduate of the University of Oxford, Saïd Business School (Organisational Leadership), and holds a PhD in Computer Network Security from Kingston University, London, an MSc in Internet Engineering, and a BSc (First Class Honours) in Computer Science & Mathematics.
He is the author/editor of 8 books and has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals and conferences. He serves as Editor, Cyber Science book series, EIC, International Journal on Cyber Situational Awareness (IJCSA), and Founder, the Centre for Multidisciplinary Research, Innovation and Collaboration (C-MRiC)—a non-profit NGO advancing global research and innovation through interdisciplinary collaboration.
For more, visit: https://www.c-mric.com/cyril
