Tanmay Bhowmik: CSE assistant professor receives National Science Foundation CAREER award

A Mississippi State University assistant professor from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the Bagley College of Engineering has received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.

Tanmay Bhowmik was MSU’s latest recipient of the NSF CAREER award, which grants the winner funds over five years to be dedicated to all aspects of their research. The two-time MSU computer science graduate, who received his bachelor’s in computer science and engineering at the National Institute of Technology in Durgapur, India, said he was honored to be selected as a 2023 recipient of the NSF CAREER award.

“I'm very happy and very fortunate that I have received this award,” Bhowmik said. “This award is the result of a lot of effort from many people, not just me.”

He continued giving credit to his peers, that gave him continuous feedback and guidance on his application, particularly those who had previously won the CAREER award and other NSF grants.

“These people helped me quite a lot to shape my proposal. And ultimately, it is a combination of the input from so many different people,” he said. “From my experience CAREER award is not easy to get. You must be very persistent to receive nationally competitive grants from all those agencies. It would be best if you also had feedback and guidance from your colleagues familiar with you and your research.”

Bhowmik, whose research focuses on requirements engineering (RE), said his research goals are to develop innovative solutions to help startups and small-size firms and to develop secure and creative software. His research initiatives include predicting vulnerabilities for software requirements so that they can be addressed as early as during RE and automated discovery of creative software requirements. His other research interests include social aspects in software engineering, information foraging, empirical methods in software engineering and software engineering education.

Recipients of the CAREER award receive five years of funding for their research endeavors. Bhowmik has plans to use his funding towards supporting a graduate assistant, conference travel and community outreach. He joins a list of recent Bagley College of Engineering faculty members who have earned the CAREER Award. Recent recipients include Bo Tang,  Jean Mohammadi-Aragh, Ali Gurbuz, Wenmeng “Meg” Tian, Neeraj Rai, Maxwell Young and, most recently, Mehmet Kurum.