Two EECS professors recognized with NSF CAREER Awards

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recognized electrical engineering and computer sciences assistant professors Yakun Sophia Shao and Gireeja Ranade with Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards.

The awards are part of NSF’s prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, which supports early-career faculty “who have the potential to serve as academic role models” and to become leaders in their field, according to the NSF website. They are among the agency’s most competitive honors.

Ranade is the recipient of a $519,947 grant award to explore new non-linear control strategies. According to the proposal, “the ability to analyze and give guarantees for refined models can better characterize the risk for safety-critical systems.”

“I’m honored to have received the CAREER award,” Ranade said. “The funding and the recognition will support my group’s research in control theory and education.”

Shao received a grant amount of $600,000 to fund her work toward improving the performance of computing platforms, including her research in hardware acceleration. The work would benefit a variety of systems, such as robotics and self-driving cars.

“I am particularly excited about this award because it will enable me and my team to pursue our research goals with greater resources and opportunities,” Shao said. “We are passionate about advancing the field of computer architecture.”