LOUISVILLE, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Soha Hassoun, Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science at Tufts University and a past general chair of the Design Automation Conference (DAC), has been selected as the recipient of the Marie R. Pistilli Women in Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Achievement Award for 2016. An accomplished academic and researcher, Dr. Hassoun also has held executive and leadership positions in conferences and workshops for computer-aided design, design automation, logic synthesis, timing issues in the specification and synthesis of digital systems, and bio-design automation. In addition to providing a role model for female students in graduate and undergraduate engineering, Dr. Hassoun has given back to her professional community by acting as a mentor and advisor; working with students transitioning to graduate school; and speaking on improving the graduate school environment for female students, working the 80/20 rule for success, and helping women understand what defines future leaders and ideal hires.
Professor Hassoun created impactful and enduring educational and research programs for the EDA community including: the PhD Forum at DAC, now in its 19th year; the Design Automation Summer School, now in its 6th iteration; the CADathlon at ICCAD, now in its 16th year; the Designer Track at DAC, now in its 8th year; and the Work in Progress session at DAC, now in its 4th year. These programs have reconfigured the international educational landscape in EDA and significantly enhanced the creation of a coherent and connected research community.
Dr. Hassoun was a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, and several awards from ACM/SIGDA for her service, including the Distinguished Service Award in 2000 and 2007 as well as the 2002 Technical Leadership Award. She has held leadership positions for such conferences and workshops as DAC, ICCAD, IWLS, and TAU. Dr. Hassoun was ICCAD Technical Program Chair in 2005, ICCAD Vice Chair in 2006, ICCAD Chair in 2007, DAC Technical Program Co-Chair in 2011 and 2012, DAC Vice Chair in 2013, and DAC Chair in 2014.
Dr. Hassoun co-founded the International Workshop on Bio-Design Automation in 2009. She was an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design and of the IEEE Design and Test magazine. She was nominated to the Defense Science Study Group, affiliated with DARPA's Institute for Defense Analyses. Dr. Hassoun served on the IEEE Council on Design Automation and was director of educational activities for ACM's Special Interest Group on Design Automation for several years. She is a fellow of Tau Beta Pi, a senior member of IEEE and ACM, and a member of Eta Kappa Nu.
“Members of the DAC Executive Committee [EC] have had the pleasure of working with Dr. Hassoun as she served on the EC in various capacities since 2011,” said Ann Steffora Mutscher, Editor, Semiconductor Engineering and chairperson of Women in Electronic Design. “In 2013, she was recognized by the Electronic Design Automation Consortium as one of 33 luminaries in the field of electronic design automation. It is a pleasure to present her with the Marie Pistilli award in recognition of her service to DAC and the other communities of which she is a member, and for her contribution to research, technology, and the education of engineers in such a wide variety of fields.”
About Soha Hassoun
Dr. Hassoun is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science at Tufts University. Dr. Hassoun holds secondary appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and also in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Tufts. She received her BSEE degree from South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD; her Master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA; and her Ph.D. degree from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
Dr. Hassoun was an integrated circuit designer with the Microprocessor Design Group, Digital Equipment Corporation, Hudson, MA, from 1988 until 1991, and worked as a consultant at IBM Research Labs in Austin, and to several EDA companies, including IKOS Systems (now with Mentor Graphics) and Carbon Design Systems (now with ARM). Her current research interests include developing algorithmic solutions to facilitate designing integrated circuits, and understanding the impact of new technologies such as double-gate devices, carbon nanotubes, and 3-D integration on design. Additional research includes computational methods for systems biology and metabolic engineering, including pathway analysis, modularity, pathway synthesis, and predictive modeling of biochemical networks.
About the Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award
Women have made important contributions and strides in the EDA industry for over 20 years. To recognize those who have dedicated time and effort toward these achievements, the DAC Executive Committee presents an annual award to honor an individual who has made significant contributions to help women advance in the field of EDA technology. The award is named for DAC’s former organizer Marie Pistilli, who worked hard to further the advancement of women in engineering and who passed away in November 2015. The Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award will be presented to Dr. Hassoun during the 53rd Design Automation Conference (DAC) General Session Awards presentation, Monday, June 6, 2016 at the Austin Convention Center, Austin, TX.
For a list of previous recipients of the Award visit https://dac.com/content/women-electronic-design.
About DAC
The Design Automation Conference (DAC) is recognized as the premier event for the design of electronic circuits and systems and for electronic design automation (EDA). Members of a diverse worldwide community from more than 1,000 organizations attend each year, represented by system designers and architects, logic and circuit designers, validation engineers, CAD managers, senior managers and executives, and researchers and academicians from leading universities. Close to 60 technical sessions selected by a committee of electronic design experts offer information on recent developments and trends, management practices and new products, methodologies and technologies. A highlight of DAC is its exhibition and suite area, with approximately 200 of the leading and emerging EDA, silicon, intellectual property (IP) and design services providers. The conference is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (EDA Consortium), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and is supported by ACM's Special Interest Group on Design.
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