Computer Science Professor David Jacobs was named director of the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), effective September 6, 2026. Jacobs, who has been a faculty member at UMD since 2002, will take over from Andrew Childs, who served as interim director for the past year.
“David Jacobs has been a valued member of the University of Maryland faculty for nearly 25 years,” said Amitabh Varshney, dean of UMD’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS). “His record of collaboration across disciplines, combined with his leadership experience, will further strengthen UMIACS’ position as a cornerstone of the university’s research enterprise.”
Jacobs will lead the multidisciplinary research institute where scientists harness the power of computation to tackle some of the most complex challenges facing science and society. The institute brings together more than 130 faculty members from 17 departments who support more than 250 graduate students. UMIACS secures annual sponsored research funding exceeding $30 million in areas such as trustworthy artificial intelligence, machine translation, autonomous robotics, microbiome science, quantum information science, computer vision and cybersecurity.
“My own research has benefited tremendously from the great interdisciplinary environment provided by UMIACS, and I am looking forward to contributing to that environment as director,” Jacobs said.
A leading scientist in the fields of computer vision and machine learning with a focus on visual object recognition and handling lighting variations, Jacobs has worked on a wide range of interdisciplinary projects, collaborating with researchers in electrical engineering, applied mathematics, botany, psychology, chemistry, public policy and more. Jacobs also explores image clustering, structure-from-motion, and the intersections of vision with user interfaces and graphics.
He has published over 160 papers in refereed journals, conferences and workshops and holds five U.S. patents. He has supervised more than 50 high school, undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
Jacobs has held many leadership roles on campus, including director of the Center for Machine Learning (2019–22), computer science associate chair for graduate admissions (2017–19), and associate director for the neuroscience and cognitive science graduate program (2007–10). He also led the development of the Science Academy master’s degree programs in applied machine learning, data science and artificial intelligence.
He previously worked as an engineering manager at Meta (2022–24) and a visiting scholar at the Federation of American Scientists.
Jacobs earned his B.A. in mathematics from Yale University in 1982 and his M.S. in computer science in 1988 and his Ph.D. in computer science in 1992 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.