Distinguished Research Professor Premkumar Devanbu Elected Foreign Member of Academia Europaea

Distinguished Research Professor of Computer Science Premkumar Devanbu of the University of California, Davis, has been elected a Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea, also known as the Academy of Europe.

The Academia Europaea promotes European research and fosters interdisciplinary and international scholarship by advancing the excellence of scientists and scholars across disciplines spanning the humanities, law, social sciences, mathematics, medicine and the natural and technological sciences. Election to the Academy is by invitation only, with Foreign Member status requiring extensive prior collaboration with European institutions.

Devanbu says he is incredibly honored to be in the company of fellow researchers who have been highly impactful in their fields. 

“I deeply respect the achievements of peers and current Academy members who work in areas most closely related to mine,” he said. “It's wonderful to be included in this elite group of colleagues.”

Devanbu's election as a Foreign Member reflects years of sustained collaborations in Europe. He has worked with researchers at several universities, including the University of Zurich, the University of Saarland, the University of Stuttgart, TU Eindhoven, TU Delft, University College London and the University of Edinburgh. 

Devanbu investigates how language models can be used in software development and the impact they have. In 2012, Devanbu and colleagues at UC Davis were among the first to demonstrate that language models could be applied usefully to programming tasks in the paper “On the Naturalness of Software,” which received the Most Influential Paper Award from the 2022 International Conference on Software Engineering. 

That same year, Devanbu won the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Research Award, which invited him to the German institutions, the University of Stuttgart and the University of Saarland, where he has collaborated over the past several years as a visiting scholar on understanding and improving software development processes involving language models.

Devanbu stated that the support and encouragement from the College of Engineering and UC Davis for international engagement have been central to his career. 

“I have benefited greatly from long-term international collaborations by learning about other academic cultures and new ways of thinking and working,” he said. “As an immigrant myself, I deeply appreciate and value these collaborations. Talent and creativity don't depend on languages, ethnicities or national boundaries; it’s best to ignore such things when pursuing new solutions that make people's lives better.”