Pavithra Prabhakar

2025 Early Career Academic Achievement Alumni Award

Pavithra Prabhakar is a professor in the Department of Computer Science, and the Peggy and Gary Edwards Chair in Engineering at Kansas State University. She obtained her doctorate in computer science and a master's degree in applied mathematics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, followed by a CMI postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology. 

Prabhakar’s expertise is in AI-enabled autonomous, cyber-physical, and robotic systems, with applications that span aerospace, automotive, and agricultural automation. She has authored over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles, is the recipient of a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant from the European Union (2014), an NSF CAREER Award (2016), an ONR Young Investigator Award (2017), NITW distinguished Young Alumnus Award (2021), an Amazon Research Award (2022), and a CRA Future Leader recognition (2024).

Currently, Dr. Prabhakar is serving the National Science Foundation as a Program Director in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate as an IPA.