Two PhD candidates from Stony Brook’s Department of Computer Science – Saumya Gupta and Kanchana Ranasinghe – were recently featured in the University’s Graduate School Student Spotlight campaign. This initiative showcases outstanding graduate students across disciplines, and Gupta and Ranasinghe were highlighted for their exceptional research achievements and contributions to the campus community. “We are extremely proud of Saumya and Kanchana,” said Samir Das, Professor and Chair of Computer Science. “Their dedication to research and to our community exemplifies the excellence we strive for in our graduate program.”
Saumya Gupta (left) has excelled in computer vision research and mentoring fellow students.
Gupta joined Stony Brook’s PhD program in Fall 2021, drawn by the university’s strength in computer vision research. Originally from India and an alumna of NITK Surathkal, she quickly became an integral part of the CS community – volunteering as an instructor for a biomedical AI bootcamp and serving as an officer (and now President) of the Women in PhD (WPhD) club. Gupta’s research in machine learning and medical imaging has led to publications at top conferences like ECCV, ICLR, NeurIPS, and ICME. She also completed two research internships at Adobe, and earned multiple travel awards (for ECCV 2022, NeurIPS 2023, ICLR 2025) along with a coveted spot at the CRA-Women Grad Cohort workshop in 2023.
“Attending Stony Brook exceeded all my expectations,” Gupta said. “I met amazing people, made lifelong friends, and got to work on my favorite research topics. It also gave me the opportunities and visibility to work in industry. I’ll definitely miss Stony Brook once I graduate!”
Kanchana Ranasinghe (right) bridges computer vision and robotics in his award-winning research.
Kanchana Ranasinghe, who began his PhD at Stony Brook in 2021, was attracted not only by the vibrant CS department and its renowned vision labs, but also by the campus’s natural beauty and proximity to New York City. Outside of research, he helps improve the department by organizing TA training workshops, and pursues his passion for dance as a member of the SBU Ballroom Dance Team. Ranasinghe’s research bridges computer vision and robotics — he develops AI algorithms that learn from instructional videos (like YouTube tutorials) to teach robots how to perform everyday tasks. He has presented this work at prestigious conferences including ICLR 2025 (Singapore), CVPR 2024 (Seattle), NeurIPS 2023 (New Orleans), and ICCV 2023 (Paris). During his PhD, he also interned at tech leaders such as Apple, Meta and Google, and even spent a term at Salesforce – an impressive track record that highlights his versatility. His innovations earned an Outstanding Demo Award at CVPR 2023, among other honors.
“Stony Brook’s beautiful, spacious campus — with beaches, parks, great food, and NYC within reach — made grad school a wonderful experience,” said Ranasinghe. “I formed unique friendships in our robotics and vision labs, in clubs like ballroom dance, and even in the most unexpected corners of campus life.”
Together, the accomplishments of Gupta and Ranasinghe underscore the Department of Computer Science’s culture of excellence and highlight the impact of Stony Brook’s graduate programs in training future leaders in tech.