Michael D. Moffitt, who recently defended his PhD in Artificial Intelligence under Prof. Martha Pollack, has accepted the prestigious 2007 Josef Raviv Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship for promising research in computer science. He will spend his post-doctoral year at the IBM Austin Research Lab (ARL).

Moffitt was selected from among 40 applicants from around the world. His proposed research will focus on the application of artificial intelligence and constraint-based reasoning to problems commonly faced in computer-aided physical design, including algorithms for detailed placement and routing.

Moffitt’s work has been attracting attention and recognition in multiple venues. He received a Best Student Paper Award for his paper, “Optimal Rectangle Packing: A Meta-CSP Approach,” at the 16th International Conference on Automated Planning & Scheduling (ICAPS-2006), and more recently he took first place, 3D category, in the inaugural Global Routing Contest held at the 2007 ACM International Symposium on Physical Design (ISPD). His router, dubbed MaizeRouter, was praised by ISPD 2007 chair Patrick Madden for its efficiency. [See EE Times Article]

The Josef Raviv Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship in Computer Science and Computer Engineering is awarded to an individual who received their PhD after 2003 and who shows exceptional promise for a research career in computer science or computer engineering. The Fellow is given the freedom to follow his own research interests, and may select any group of his choice in any of the following IBM Research labs worldwide: Almaden Research Center (California), Austin Research Lab (Texas), Thomas J. Watson Research Center (Yorktown or Hawthorne, New York), Zurich Research Lab, or Tokyo Research Lab.

IBM Press Release
Recent Article about Michael Moffitt in the EECS Newsletter (see pg. 12)