In Memoriam: Shashata Sawmya SM ’24
Shashata Sawmya, a graduate student in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Department and member of MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), passed away in Canada while attending an academic conference
Shashata Sawmya, a graduate student in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Department and member of MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), passed away in Canada while attending an academic conference. Sawmya earned his master’s degree in EECS from the Institute in May 2024 and was part of Professor Nir Shavit’s group at CSAIL.
In an email to the EECS and CSAIL communities, Professors Asu Ozdaglar, Leslie Kolodziejski, and Daniela Rus described Sawmya as a “talented and promising scholar working in connectomics, neural reconstruction and modeling, and efficient and interpretable neural computation.” Sawmya received his undergraduate degree in computer science from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 2021. He came to MIT to begin his graduate studies in 2022.
In an email to the MIT community, MIT President Sally Kornbluth described Sawmya as a “community builder.” Sawmya was president of MIT’s Bangladeshi Students Association, and a resident of the Westgate Dormitory on campus. He was remembered by his Head of House as “warm and friendly.”
Funeral arrangements have yet to be announced.