Xiaobo Sharon Hu, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame, has been awarded an endowed chair—the highest honor a university can bestow upon faculty. Hu was named Notre Dame’s Leo E. and Patti Ruth Linbeck Professor of Engineering, effective July 1, 2024.

“Professor Hu is a leader in the field of computer hardware design,” said Patricia J. Culligan, the Matthew H. McCloskey Dean of the College of Engineering. “She is a prolific researcher, dedicated mentor, and tireless advocate for women in her discipline.”

Hu’s research focuses on designing energy-efficient and reliable systems, creating new circuits and architectures based on emerging technologies, managing resources for real-time systems, crafting integrated algorithms and hardware for medical applications, and developing design methodologies and tools for VLSI circuits and systems.

In 2023, she was honored with the Marie R. Pistilli Women in Engineering Achievement Award from the Design Automation Conference (DAC) for her significant contributions in helping women advance in the field of electronic design automation (EDA) technology. She is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and fellow of the IEEE. She has received four best paper awards to date from premier conferences in her research field, published over 450 papers, and been granted eight U.S. patents.

Hu is currently serving as a rotating program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF), which advances critical and emerging computer hardware design technologies.

After completing her master’s in electrophysics from the Polytechnic Institute of New York (now New York University Tandon School of Engineering), she received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Purdue University. Hu joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1996 and has a concurrent appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering.