The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest and most prestigious educational and scientific computing society, has named Xiaobo Sharon Hu, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame, a 2021 fellow.

The ACM Fellows program recognizes the top 1 percent of members for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community.

This year’s 71 fellows were cited for wide-ranging and fundamental contributions in areas including algorithms, computer science education, cryptography, data security and privacy, medical informatics, and mobile and networked systems, among others.

Hu was honored for her contributions to the design of power-constrained and real-time embedded systems.

Embedded systems include, for example, mobile phones, medical devices embedded in the body, and anti-lock brake controllers. Among her contributions, Hu has developed power management strategies to prolong battery life and enhance reliability for real-time embedded systems and designed hardware for effectively exploiting emerging electronic technologies to improve energy efficiency.

Hu received her Ph.D. from Purdue University; M.S. from Polytechnic Institute of New York (now New York University Tandon School of Engineering); and B.S. from Tianjin University, China. She worked as senior research engineer at General Motors Research Laboratory for almost 4 years before starting her academic career in Western Michigan University’s department of electrical and computer engineering.

Hu joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1996. Her research interests and expertise include energy and reliability aware system-level design; circuit and architecture design based on emerging technologies; resource management for real-time embedded systems; algorithm and hardware co-design for machine learning and medical applications; and computer-aided design of VLSI circuits and systems.

She is the Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES). She also is a fellow of IEEE.

— College of Engineering