🌟 Graduate Student Spotlight: PhD Candidate Tammy Sukprasert! 🌟

Tammy Sukprasert completed her undergraduate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UMass Amherst in 2022 and then began the UMass Computer Science PhD Program in the fall of that year. Tammy has been an active member of our school community. In 2024, she was a participant in the Turing Summer Program in which she mentored high school students on computing for the common good. Additionally, Tammy served as a mentor for undergraduate students in the Undergraduate Research Volunteers Program.

Tammy’s PhD research focuses on Public Interest Technology, specifically the design of reliable distributed computer systems that operate on variable and renewable energy sources. Traditional distributed systems assume stable, always-available power, but renewable sources such as solar and wind introduce significant intermittency and fluctuation, creating challenges for both system reliability and resource efficiency. Through this work, Tammy is learning to design adaptive scheduling and load balancing policies that align workloads with available energy while minimizing performance degradation. Tammy is also gaining hands-on experience in translating simulated results into real-world testbed implementations, bridging the gap between theory and practice.

Tammy shares that deciding whether or not to go to graduate school can be an overwhelming decision. When considering grad programs, she recommends reviewing the faculty pages and the research that the faculty members are currently working on with the goal of finding someone who has similar research interests and could be a potential advisor. She also suggests reaching out to students who are currently working in the lab to learn more about the culture, processes, and protocols that are currently in place.

If you are debating whether or not graduate school is the right path for you, schedule an appointment with our career advising team on Career Forge and check out our Guide to Grad School.

We want to hear your story too! 📖 We encourage CICS students and alumni to fill out our Career Spotlight Interest Form so we can celebrate your accomplishments 🎉