College of Engineering recognizes Hanumolu for outstanding research

Associate Professor Pavan Kumar Hanumolu and three ECE ILLINOIS affiliate faculty members will be among those honored at the Engineering at Illinois 2017 College Faculty Awards Ceremony.

Prof. Hanumolu is one of ten faculty members receiving this year's Dean's Award for Excellence in Research. His research pursuits are at the intersection of device physics and fabrication technology, microarchitecture, power electronics, and systems (signal processing, communications and control). He is considered one of the top-five researchers working on mixed-signal integrated circuits worldwide. Department Head William H Sanders said, "Associate Professor Hanumolu has been on a path of excellence, establishing himself as an unparalleled leader in his field, unmatched by his generational peers and admired by more senior researchers," in his letter of nomination.

Prof. Honumolu's research builds upon his stellar reputation in high-speed serial links, expanding into two new areas: energy proportional high-speed serial links and time-based analog circuits. Based in the Coordinated Scienc Lab, His first new area addresses energy-proportional communication, which has been classified among the most significant Information Technology challenges faced by the industry today. His group developed novel circuit and system design techniques to enable high-speed serial links to achieve close to zero quiescent power when idle, while achieving rapid start-up in the range of 10s of nanoseconds when required to transmit.

His second area is in the design of time-based analog circuits. His group engineered techniques to represent information in terms of signal phase using a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) and developed efficient techniques to process it. His contributions in this area include the design of time-based analog-to-digital converters, continuous time-filters, and high switching frequency DC-DC converters. These contributions have inspired the work of many other research groups around the world.

The Dean's Award for Excellence in Research was established to honor faculty for outstanding research. Five assistant professors are chosen by their peers based on who has conducted the most outstanding research during the last academic year. In addition, five associate professors are chosen for their outstanding research over the past five academic years.

Three ECE ILLINOIS affiliate faculty members will also be honored this year. Bioengineering Associate Professor Brad Sutton and Aerospace Engineering Assistant Professor Grace Gao are also receiving the Dean's Award for Excellence in Research. Mechanical Science and Engineering Associate Professor Kimani Toussant will receive the Everitt Award for Teaching Excellence.

The ceremony will be held Monday, April 24, 2017, 6 - 8 p.m., at the NCSA Auditorium, 1205 W. Clark Street, Urbana, Illinois. It is open to the public, but RSVPs by April 17 are appreciated.