Sumit Gulwani
Sumit Gulwani is a Distinguished Scientist and Vice President at Microsoft, where he leads scientific and architectural work on agentic AI across Excel Copilot and Visual Studio Copilot. He is the inventor of Flash Fill, an Excel feature that learns from the user's intentions and extends them to similar data. He earned an undergraduate degree at IIT Kanpur in 2000, and his Berkeley dissertation received an ACM SIGPLAN award in 2005. He joined Microsoft Research in 2005 and received the Robin Milner Young Researcher Award from ACM in 2014. In 2021 he received the Max Planck-Humboldt Medal, and in 2023 he was named an ACM Fellow.
Timeline
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2000
A gold medal at IIT Kanpur
At IIT Kanpur he earns an undergraduate degree in computer science in 2000, where he is awarded the President's Gold Medal.
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2005
Program analysis using random interpretation
His Berkeley dissertation wins the ACM SIGPLAN doctoral dissertation award in 2005. He begins his career at Microsoft Research in 2005.
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2011–2013
Flash Fill in Excel 2013
A 2011 academic paper gives rise to Flash Fill. Microsoft Excel 2013 adds it as a feature that learns from your intentions and extends them to similar data. He is the inventor of the feature.
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2014
A Robin Milner Young Researcher Award
He receives the Robin Milner Young Researcher Award from ACM in 2014. The award recognizes contributions by young investigators in the area of programming languages.
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Since 2015
A blended research and engineering team
He leads a blended research and engineering team funded by multiple Microsoft business units, which enables him to deliver AI features in numerous Microsoft products.
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2021
A Max Planck-Humboldt Medal
He receives the Max Planck-Humboldt Medal in 2021, alongside Anastassia Alexandrova from the University of California, Los Angeles.
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2023
Named an ACM Fellow
He is named a 2023 ACM Fellow for contributions to computing, one of six Microsoft researchers so honored.
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As of October 2026
Distinguished Scientist and Vice President
He is a Distinguished Scientist and Vice President at Microsoft. He leads scientific and architectural work on agentic AI across Excel Copilot and Visual Studio Copilot.
Sources and credits
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