Prasun Dewan

Prasun Dewan is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before joining UNC-Chapel Hill, he was on the faculty of Purdue University. His academic journey began with a B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology of New Delhi, followed by a Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1986.

Dr. Dewan's research interests span multiple domains within computer science, with a strong focus on collaborative systems. His work encompasses user interfaces, distributed collaboration frameworks, software engineering environments, mobile computing, and access control mechanisms. He has made significant contributions to the development of frameworks for implementing both single-user and multi-user applications, collaborative software engineering tools, distributed and migratory object systems, and interoperability solutions.

His publication record shows a consistent focus on solving fundamental problems in collaborative computing, with particular emphasis on user interface coupling, object merging, access control, and distributed systems architecture. The evolution of his work demonstrates a progression from foundational frameworks to more specialized solutions addressing real-time collaboration, mobile computing challenges, and complex interoperability requirements.

As an academic leader, Dr. Dewan has served as an associate editor for prestigious journals including ACM Transactions on Computer Human Interaction, ACM Transactions on Information Systems, and Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work. His research has been supported by significant funding from the National Science Foundation and DARPA, particularly for projects like the Collaboration Bus and Flexible Shared Windows.

Dr. Dewan actively mentors graduate students and has advised numerous PhD candidates including Jason Carter, Jacob Bartel, Goopeel Chung, Brian Ladd, John Menges, Eileen Kupstas, Jon Munson, Jaime Navon, and Honghai Shen. His laboratory, part of the UNC Colab group, focuses on developing next-generation collaboration technologies with applications ranging from educational tools to virtual environments.