Prof. Massoud Pedram received M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989 and 1991, respectively. He obtained his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1986. He joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California where he is currently a professor and Chair of the Computer Engineering division. Dr. Pedram is a recipient of the National Science Foundation's Young Investigator Award (1994) and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (a.k.a. the Presidential Faculty Fellows Award) (1996). His research has received a number of awards including two Best Paper Awards from the International Conference on Computer Design, two Design Automation Conference Best Paper Awards, an IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems Best Paper Award, and an IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Guillemin-Cauer Award.

Dr. Pedram has served on the technical program committee of a number of conferences and workshops, including Design Automation Conference (DAC), Design and Test in Europe (DATE), Asia-Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC), International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD), International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design (ISLPED), International Symposium on Physical Design (ISPD), and International Workshop on Logic Synthesis (IWLS). Dr. Pedram was a co-founder and general chair of the 1995 International Symposium on Low Power Design and the technical co-chair and general co-chair of the 1996 and 1997 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design, respectively. He was the Technical Chair of the 2002 International Symposium on Physical Design and is the General Chair of the 2003 symposium. Dr. Pedram has given several tutorials on low power design at major CAD conferences and forums including, DAC, ICCAD, and ASP-DAC. He has published more than 300 journal and conference papers and written four books on various aspects of low power design.

Dr. Pedram is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM member. He serves on the Advisory Board of the ACM Special Interest Group on Design Automation. He served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems and ACM Transcations on Design Automation of Electronic Systems. He received the 2000 Distinguished Service Award of ACM - SIGDA for contributions in developing the SIGDA Multimedia Monograph Series and organizing the Young Student Support Program. Dr. Pedram was a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society from 2000 to 2002, Chair of the Distinguished Lecturer Program of the IEEE CASS for 2003 and 2004, and the CASS VP of Publications in 2005 and 2006.

His research specializations include:

• Dynamic Power Management and Power-Aware Design
• Architectural and RT-Level Power Analysis, Design, and Optimization
• Ultra Low Power Circuit Design Techniques
• Power Conversion and Regulation Technologies
• Smart Battery Design
• Physical Design Optimization and Logic Synthesis Techniques
• Design Automation Tools and Flows for Performance and Reliability
• Optimization of VLSI Circuits
• Signal Integrity Analysis and Optimization of VLSI Interconnects
• Power-Aware Wireless Sensor Networks
• Nanotechnology and Beyond CMOS Technologies