Distinguished Professor Kapur remembered as research and teaching “perfectionist”
April 27, 2026 - Carly Bowling
Distinguished Professor Deepak Kapur of The University of New Mexico Department of Computer Science passed away unexpectedly on April 11. He is remembered by friends and colleagues for an illustrious career in teaching and a deep intellectual curiosity that motivated him until the end.
Kapur joined the department in December 1998 and served as chair from 1999 until 2006. He ushered into the department a spirit of strong research activity, through faculty recruitment and increasing graduate student opportunities. To support faculty research, he increased the number of teaching assistantships in the department, which provided essential support for classes and helped the School recruit graduate students.
Kapur’s research was at the intersection of automated reasoning, formal methods, algebraic reasoning and symbolic computation, with a long-standing focus on developing algorithmic techniques for reasoning about mathematical structures and software systems. His work made foundational contributions to term rewriting systems, equational reasoning, and decision procedures, and more recently extended into areas such as program verification, cyber-physical systems and security. A unifying theme in his research was the design of rigorous, mathematically grounded tools that can automatically establish correctness properties, enabling more reliable and trustworthy computing systems.
Shuang Luan, chair of the Department of Computer Science, joined UNM in 2004, benefiting from Kapur’s efforts to bolster research.
“Deepak truly loved both research and teaching. He cared deeply about his students and was dedicated to supporting their growth, both academically and personally,” Luan said. “He will be missed dearly by everyone in the department.”
Catalin Roman, professor in the Department of Computer Science and former School of Engineering dean, described Kapur as a dear friend and “perfectionist” of both teaching and research who found intellectual inquiry and innovation central to his identity.
“He showed care for the individual while demanding quality work; he accepted no shortcuts on his part and invested much effort to ensure an excellent learning experience, even when facing major health challenges,” Roman said. “On the research side, he felt a deep obligation toward his graduate students and their future careers. He was a great mentor and rejected retirement out of a desire to see his last student graduate.”
Close offices helped the two develop a close friendship centered around similar values, retelling of their life stories and analysis of world affairs.
“I loved our dinners together, especially those involving Roli’s (Kapur’s wife) wonderful cooking, and I appreciated his collection of great Scotches, which he generously offered for side-by-side tasting,” Roman said. “He enjoyed movies and often recommended hard-to-watch, traumatic stories about life in India.”
ThanhVu Nguyen, associate professor in the Computer Science Department at George Mason University, earned a Ph.D. under Kapur’s advisement in 2014 and remained close. Nguyen remembers Kapur as a respected senior researcher who “could be quite amusing and fun to be around.” As a student, Nguyen called Kapur “Professor.” Amused by this, Kapur began calling Nguyen “Professor,” too, until he graduated and became an actual professor, at which point, Kapur went back to calling Nguyen by his name.
Kapur never stopped learning new things. When Nguyen’s research interests transitioned to neural network verification, Kapur, then 73, began learning about the work and offering new insights. Recently, Nguyen invited Kapur to serve as co-PI on an NSF proposal. The last message Kapur sent to Nguyen was about the research work they planned to do.
“Deepak is the type of person that I simply do not believe could “’retire’” and would think about research until his last day,” Nguyen said. “I imagine in those last few days he was still thinking about how to make NNV proof checking more efficient.” Kapur earned his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980 following B.Tech and M.Tech degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1971 and 1973, respectively.
He is survived by his wife Roli Varma, Carl Hatch Endowed Professor in the UNM School of Public Administration, and his daughter, Ila Kapur Varma, associate professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto.
Friends of Kapur will gather for a memorial at University Club, located at 1923 Las Lomas Rd NE, on Wednesday, April 29, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Those unable to join in person are invited to attend virtually using the Zoom Meeting ID 958 6731 2925.
