Soha Hassoun to Receive Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award
Award-winning researcher and educator honored for her contributions
to EDA
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.
Design Automation Conference acknowledges trademarks or registered
trademarks of other organizations for their respective products and
services.
Contacts
Design Automation Conference
Michelle Clancy, 1-303-530-4334
Press@dac.com
