Terry Benzel Elected as 2028 IEEE Computer Society President

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 25 September 2026 – The IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) today announced that Terry Benzel, currently serving as IEEE CS vice president, has been voted IEEE CS 2027 president-elect (2028 president).

Terry Benzel is managing director of the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California and an IEEE Fellow recognized for leadership in cybersecurity experimentation. ISI is a world-renowned research organization in computing and communications technologies.

A long-time IEEE CS volunteer, Benzel has contributed through conferences, publications, technical communities, governance, and strategic initiatives. In addition to being the society’s current vice president, she represents the society on the multi-society CLEAR (Community-Led Ethics for Accountability in Research) Task Force and leads the society’s Ethics and Integrity initiative. An IEEE Fellow, Benzel has received numerous IEEE CS honors, including the Golden Core Recognition, Outstanding Service Award, Outstanding Community Service Award, and Continuing Service Award.

Benzel will serve as the 2028 IEEE Computer Society president for a one-year term beginning 1 January 2028. The president oversees IEEE Computer Society programs and operations and is a nonvoting member of most IEEE Computer Society program boards and committees.

Benzel garnered 2,539 votes, compared with 1,305 votes cast for Saurabh Bagchi, a professor at Purdue University, U.S., chair of its computer engineering division whose research contributions lie in reliable and secure computing and co-founder of startup KeyByte LLC.

The 2026 election had a 12.97% turnout with 4,022 ballots cast. The turnout percentage was nearly consistent with the 2025 election, which had a 13.04% turnout (4,457 ballots cast).

2027 VICE PRESIDENT

Takako Hashimoto, deputy to the president and professor at Chiba University of Commerce, Japan, and research fellow at The University of Tokyo with research focus on data mining, social media analytics, social network analysis, and artificial intelligence applied to large-scale societal data, was elected vice president with 2,221 votes.

Nils Aschenbruck, full professor of computer science at Osnabrueck University, Germany, whose research focus is on dependable and robust networked systems including scenario modeling, traffic engineering, and network security, garnered 1,631 votes.

BOARD OF GOVERNORS

The six elected members of the Board of Governors for a three-year term from 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2029 are:

• Sean Peisert – Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Davis (1,814 votes)
• Vincenzo Piuri – University of Milan (1,789 votes)
• Andreas Reinhardt – TU Clausthal (1,907 votes)
• Himani Saini – UR Rao Satellite Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) (1,712 votes)
• Yoshiko Yasuda – Hitachi, Ltd. (2,402 votes)
• Stefano Zanero – Politecnico di Milano (1,990 votes)

Results for other Board of Governors candidates are as follows:

• Ajay Gupta – Western Michigan University (1,363 votes)
• Celestine Iwendi – Centre of Intelligence of Things, University of Greater Manchester (1,501 votes)
• Upal Mahbub – Qualcomm Technologies (1,026 votes)
• Weisong Shi – University of Delaware (1,313 votes)
• Peilin Song – IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center (1,304 votes)

Candidates on the ballot are selected by the IEEE CS Nominations and Elections Committee or by petition. The Nominations and Elections Committee accepts nominations from members until April and presents its nominations to the Board of Governors for final slate approval.

Complete results of the 2026 IEEE Computer Society election will be published in the December issue of Computer.

About IEEE Computer Society

Engaging computer engineers, scientists, academia, and industry professionals from all areas of computing, the IEEE Computer Society sets the standard of excellence and champions global advancements to benefit humanity.

As the IEEE Computer Society celebrates its 80th anniversary in 2026, it continues to build on its rich legacy. Through conferences, publications, and programs that bring together computer science and engineering leaders at every stage of their careers, the IEEE Computer Society empowers, shapes, and guides the future of its 375,000+ community members, as well as the greater computing community, enabling new opportunities to better serve our world. Visit computer.org for more information.