Pitt Engineering’s Jingtong Hu Receives 2024 DAC Under-40 Innovators Award
Jingtong Hu, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellow, is one of five engineers to receive the prestigious 2024 Design Automation Conference (DAC) Under-40 Innovators Award. This award recognizes the top young innovators from academia and industry under the age of 40 who have made a significant impact in the field of design and automation electronics.
“It is an honor to receive this award,” Hu said. “This recognition motivates me to continue pushing the boundaries of innovation in the field of design and automation electronics.”
Many existing applications relying on deep neural networks (DNNs) require operation on edge devices due to privacy, security, and latency concerns. However, the large size of state-of-the-art DNNs conflicts with the limited computational power and memory of these devices. Hu has dedicated his efforts to overcoming this challenge by facilitating the deployment of DNNs on edge devices, ensuring high performance, low latency and adherence to computational, memory and security restraints. His pioneering work encompasses deep learning algorithms and the simultaneous explorations of neural architectures and hardware designs.
Hu’s contributions transcend academia by achieving societal impact through various industry applications. These include the development of an AI-powered smart stethoscope for the early diagnosis of congenital heart disease in children in low-resource areas, collaboration on the world’s first smart implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), and advanced fairness-aware mobile dermatology diagnosis with UPMC’s E-Derm program. Additionally, Hu actively serves the EDA community, overseeing numerous educational initiatives as an executive committee member and education chair for the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Design Automation.
Hu will be recognized during the award session at the 61st Annual Design Automation Conference on Monday, June 24, 2024, in San Francisco, California.
The Design Automation Conference (DAC) is globally recognized as the premier event for chips to systems, offering exceptional training, education, exhibits, and networking opportunities in artificial intelligence, machine learning, automotive, design services, design on cloud, electronic design automation, embedded systems and software, intellectual property, security, and privacy. Sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), DAC is supported by ACM’s Special Interest Group on Design Automation (SIGDA) and IEEE’s Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA).