CS Alum Debanjan Saha Selected as 2025 CMNS Graduate Commencement Keynote

Alum Debanjan Saha (M.S. '93, Ph.D. '95, computer science), CEO of DataRobot, will be the keynote speaker at the University of Maryland's College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences 2025 Graduate Commencement Ceremony on May 21, 2025. The ceremony will honor the college's August 2024, December 2024 and May 2025 graduates receiving doctoral and master's degrees and graduate certificates.

Debanjan Saha

Debanjan Saha (M.S. ’93, Ph.D. ’95, computer science) is a proud Terp, a lifelong innovator and CEO of DataRobot—a pioneer on a mission to make artificial intelligence (AI) accessible to everyone and help organizations solve real-world problems in a safe and responsible way.

Over the course of his career, Saha has held senior executive leadership roles at some of the world’s most influential technology companies, including Google and Amazon. At Amazon Web Services (AWS), he was a founding leader of Amazon Aurora—a breakthrough cloud database that became the fastest-growing service in AWS history and a multibillion-dollar product, powering everything from startups to Fortune 500 companies. At Google, he led the team behind BigQuery—a platform now central to how global enterprises analyze data, make decisions and innovate at scale.

Saha’s path to becoming a CEO began at the University of Maryland, where he learned to ask hard questions, chase bold ideas and build with purpose. A recognized leader in the field, Debanjan is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Distinguished Member and holds more than 50 patent applications.

At DataRobot, Saha is focused on a future where AI isn’t just for tech giants—it’s for anyone with a problem to solve and the passion to solve it. He believes the next generation of leaders—many sitting in this graduating class—will take AI even further, blending human creativity with machine intelligence to shape a better world.

As he returns to College Park, Saha brings a message of possibility: that your journey, like his, can start here—and go anywhere.

—Story by CMNS