Geetha Srikantan named 2026 Engineer of the Year

By Elizabeth Egan

“I am really honored and feel truly humbled to be receiving this award,” said Srikantan, as she addressed a room full of seniors from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ (SEAS), noting the impressive accomplishments of past SEAS Engineer of the Year award recipients.

Srikantan was honored at the school’s 2026 Pledge to Professionalism Ceremony on Feb. 25. During the event, SEAS seniors are invited to show their commitment to promoting the ethical and moral behaviors required of engineers and computing professionals as they prepare to graduate and begin their careers.

“Dr. Geetha Srikantan is a distinguished engineering leader whose career is one full of incredible contributions to the fields of storage virtualization, networking, cloud infrastructure, streaming media and AI,” said Nate Bolt (BS ’11), UBEAA president. “As an alumnus, she demonstrates professional excellence and community impact through innovation, mentorship, and a deep commitment to advancing the engineering profession. The alumni association is very proud to honor her with this award.”

In her address, Srikantan encouraged students to always stay curious and strive to continue learning in everything they do.

“This is a very interesting time in the middle of a transformation,” said Srikantan, in reference to the growth of artificial intelligence. “Seek out new experiences and take the opportunity to dig deep.”

She added, “Have fun in whatever you do. You spend a lot of time at work, so make sure you are having fun.”

Srikantan was introduced to the computer science and engineering field by her father, who worked on one of the first computers in India. She said that working with her father to fix electrical appliances at home inspired her to join the field.

During her time at UB, Srikantan worked in the Center of Excellence for Document Analysis and Recognition (CEDAR) along with Sargur “Hari” Srihari, CEDAR founder and SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, who passed away in 2022. There, she worked on systems that went on to be used by the United States Postal Service to automatically recognize addresses on mail. Her early research helped to save the Postal Service over $100 million in its first year of deployment.

After graduating from UB with a PhD in computer science and engineering in 1994, Srikantan went on to hold numerous positions where her work ranged from data storage and retrieval to creating AI systems.

Now a distinguished leader in engineering, Srikantan’s career has spanned more than three decades. She has driven major innovations across organizations, including Nutanix, Cisco, Sun Microsystems and several startups.

Srikantan’s work has consistently advanced business continuity, disaster recovery and large-scale system reliability. She is the inventor on seven U.S. patents, including work on distributed storage resource reservation and disaster recovery technologies. Her contributions to industry standards in streaming media and wireless technologies, along with numerous peer-reviewed publications in machine learning and computer vision, reflect her deep technical influence.

“My main inspiration has come from family, mentors and friends,” said Srikantan, specifically noting Srihari and Patricia James Eberlein, professor emerita and former chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, who passed away in 1998, as significant mentors during her time at UB.

She currently serves as a staff engineer at Nutanix, where she leads initiatives that utilize AI to improve and increase efficiency in engineering workflows. Her career has been marked by innovation, mentorship and a lasting commitment to advancing the engineering profession.