Hi! I am Prabhu, a dedicated Ph.D. Candidate enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University, situated in Pittsburgh. I am pursuing my doctoral studies within the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, benefiting from the tutelage of Prof. John Paul Shen and Prof. Shawn Blanton. I proudly contribute to the dynamic research landscape of both CMU-NCAL and CMU-ACTL groups. I am a 2023 Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship winner, ASPLOS’22 Young Architect, and DAC’22 Young Fellow.

I am passionate about using technology to solve real-world problems. My research focuses on developing new hardware architectures and algorithms for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). I am particularly interested in neuromorphic computing, a new approach to AI inspired by the human brain. Another research focus is unary computing for conventional AI computing.

I enjoy playing chess, exploring new restaurants, and reading novels in my spare time. I am also an avid traveler and have visited over 17 countries.

My Work and Research

My research work as a Ph.D. candidate began in 2021 when I started working with the NCAL and ACTL groups on neuromorphic computing and hardware security projects. My work on the neuromorphic computing side focused on developing a custom macro library for implementing Temporal Neural Networks (TNNs). TNNs are a class of spiking neural networks (SNNs) that encode and process signals temporally, with strong adherence to biological plausibility. Motivated by TNNs, my research focused on utilizing temporal-unary compute logic to perform conventional AI computations. This resulted in building area- and power-friendly general matrix multiply (GEMM) units for AI accelerators.

My Background and History

I was born in India and raised in Japan, Germany, and then the United States. I received my B.Tech. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from SRM Institute of Science and Technology, India, followed by my M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. In addition, I spent a semester at Saxion University, the Netherlands, as an exchange student during my undergraduate program.

I am excited to continue my research in computer architecture and AI, and I am confident that my work will significantly impact the field.