Sharma receives prestigious dissertation award

Harsh Sharma, who recently received his PhD at WSU, has been awarded the European Design and Automation Association's Outstanding Dissertation Award.

The award recognizes outstanding doctoral research contributions in electronic design automation and computer architecture. Sharma received the prestigious award in the category of "new directions in system-on-chip platforms co-design, novel architectures for future computing in design flows, and power management." His dissertation, "AI-driven design and optimization of heterogeneous chiplet systems for server-scale AI workloads," aims to address key challenges in system architecture, interconnects, and data movement in next-generation data center platforms.

Sharma studied at WSU for four years, graduating in December. His advisors were Professors Partha Pande and Jana Doppa in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

During that time, Sharma won three best paper awards at the IEEE/ACM Embedded Systems Week Conference, the top conference in embedded systems. He also received the Voiland College's outstanding dissertation award. During his time at WSU, he worked as an intern at AMD in Austin, Texas, and is now working as a technical staff member at the company.

"This recognition is a testament to Harsh's hard work, intellectual rigor, and dedication throughout his PhD journey," said Pande, Boeing Centennial Chair in Computer Engineering and dean of the Voiland College. "His achievement reflects excellence in research and his passion for advancing knowledge in the field of Chiplet-based architecture design. We're so proud of another example of impactful and world-class research that comes out of the Voiland College."

The award ceremony will take place during the Design, Automation, and Test in Europe (DATE) Conference 2026 in Verona, Italy in April. The prestigious conference brings together designers and design automation users, researchers and vendors, as well as specialists in hardware and software design, test, and manufacturing of electronic circuits and systems.