Professor Eyal de Lara has been appointed Chair and Graduate Chair of the Department of Computer Science, effective July 1, 2022 until June 30, 2027.

De Lara was awarded his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rice University in 2002. Upon graduation, he joined the University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science. In 2007, he was awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor. In 2015, he was promoted to the rank of Professor.

Professor de Lara’s research lies in the areas of cloud and mobile computing where he has contributed novel algorithms for system virtualization, edge computing, application scaling, indoor localization, mobile security, and continuous mobile sensing. Professor de Lara’s research has had a significant impact in both academia and industry. His research on VM fork, a new cloud computing abstraction, was commercialized by GridCentric, a Toronto based start-up that was acquired by Google. Professor de Lara’s work has been recognized with the EuroSys Test of Time Award, the CACS/AIC Outstanding Young Computer Science Researcher Prize, an NSERC Discovery Accelerator Award, Faculty Awards from IBM and VMware, as well as 3 best paper awards and 2 best paper honorable mentions.

Professor de Lara has served as the editor in chief of GetMobile, the flagship publication of ACM SIGMOBILE, and has co-chaired the technical program committees of several conferences including ACM MobiSys and ACM/IEEE SEC, which are respectively the top venues in mobile systems and edge computing. His contributions to the mobile research community have been recognized with the 2020 SIGMOBILE Distinguished Service Award. Professor de Lara has held leadership positions in the Department including serving as Faculty Recruiting Committee Chair and Associate Chair, Research.

In the role of Chair and Graduate Chair, de Lara will succeed Professor Marsha Chechik, who completes her term on June 30, 2022.

“I am humbled by the trust that the Department and the Dean have placed in me,” said de Lara. “I look forward to working with all our students and colleagues to continue to build on the great success story that is the Department of Computer Science.”