Marios Papaefthymiou, professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has been selected to receive a highly-competitive 2008 Faculty Recognition Award by the Rackham Graduate School of the University of Michigan. The award will be conferred at a public ceremony on October 8, 2008.

The Faculty Recognition Award is presented to faculty who have demonstrated substantive contributions to the University through significant achievements in scholarly research and/or creative work, excellence as a teacher, advisor and mentor, and distinguished participation in service activities of the University.

Prof. Papaefthymiou conducts interdisciplinary research on the boundary between electrical engineering and computer science, spanning algorithm design, electronic design automation, very large scale integrated circuit design, and computer design. He has made seminal contributions to the design and analysis of efficient algorithms for automating the design and managing the resources of high-performance computers. His algorithms have been adopted by industry and incorporated in commercial computer designs.

Prof. Papaefthymiou has also made pioneering contributions to the discovery and prototyping of novel architectures and circuits for building energy-efficient computers. Reducing the energy consumption of computers is highly relevant to modern concerns for energy conservation, sustainability, and the environment. His research into energy-efficient computers has resulted in eight issued and pending patents. It has also led to the founding of Cyclos Semiconductor, a start-up company launched by Prof. Papaefthymiou to commercialize next-generation low-power computer chips.

Students greatly admire Prof. Papaefthymiou’s teaching, consistently awarding him with excellent teaching evaluations even in large courses. He has taught a broad range of undergraduate and graduate courses on computer design, including computer organization, microprocessor-based systems, logic synthesis, and VLSI design. His redesign of EECS 373, Design of Microprocessor Systems, in 2001 included a final automated car race around the building that students still look forward to when they take the course.

Prof. Papaefthymiou has served as Associate Editor of some of the leading journals in his area, and regularly participates in prestigious international conferences in various capacities. At Michigan, he has devoted significant attention to the undergraduate Computer Engineering program, while serving as Director of the highly-acclaimed Advanced Computer Architecture Laboratory (ACAL) since 2000.