4/19/2012
Written by
Alumna Mary Jane Irwin, the Evan Pugh Professor and A. Robert Noll Chair, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, at Penn State University, will deliver the keynote lecture for the Women in Computer Science Annual Banquet this evening. The lecture will take place from 7 to 8 p.m. in 1404 Siebel Center. Professor Irwin will be speaking on topics relating to career development for women in technology.
Irwin designed novel computer structures that are used in laptops to vastly improve the performance of image and speech applications. She also developed techniques to automate computer-aided design (CAD) activities, which have been assimilated by the CAD industry.
Irwin's landmark contribution is the design of the first architecture for Discrete Wavelet Transform, a process that decomposes a signal into a set of basic functions. This advance provides optimal performance for signal processing and image compression used in computer-aided design. To address bottlenecks in hardware design progress resulting from poor design tools, Irwin developed a new addition algorithm, known as ELM, which offers superior energy and performance characteristics that are now found in many computers.
Irwin was one of the first researchers in computer architecture to predict that energy would become the next important constraint for high-performance systems developers of computer-aided design. To remedy this issue, she created the first architectural-level power simulator to optimize power consumption and facilitate an energy-aware design approach.
Irwin was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2003, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009. She was named a Fellow of ACM in 1996 and a Fellow of IEEE in 1995. Awards she has received include the 2003 IEEE/CAS VLSI Transactions Best Paper of the Year Award, the 2004 DAC Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Award, the 2005 ACM Distinguished Service Award, the 2007 Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award, the 2010 ACM Athena Lecturer Award, and the 2011 Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award from the department of computer science at Illinois. She has also served as a founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of ACM's Journal on Emerging Technologies from 2004 to 2006, and Editor-in-Chief of ACM's Transactions on the Design Automation of Electronic Systems from 1998-2004. She was vice president of ACM from 1997-1998.
A graduate of Memphis State University with a B.S. in mathematics, Irwin received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Chalmers University in Sweden.