University of Kentucky College of Engineering

Ishan G. Thakkar

 

 

Ishan G. Thakkar (CV)
Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Faculty of Cybersecurity Certificate Program, College of Engineering
Director, Unconventional Computing Architectures and Technologies (UCAT) Lab

Office Address:
215 Davis Marksbury Building
329 Rose St, Lexington, KY 40508 

Office Phone: +1 (859) 323-8424
Email: igthakkar@uky.edu

 

Ishan Thakkar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY. He is Director of the Unconventional Computing Architectures and Technologies (UCAT) Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University (CSU), Fort Collins, CO in 2018 and 2013, respectively. During his Ph.D. studies at CSU, he was a member of the Embedded Systems and High-Performance Computing (EPiC) Laboratory. He joined the University of Kentucky (UK) in 2018. His research broadly focuses on the design and optimization of unconventional (More than Moore) architectures and technologies for energy-efficient, reliable, and secure computing, for a wide scope of platforms including embedded systems, internet-of-things (IoT), and high-performance computing systems.

Dr. Thakkar is the recipient of the Best Paper Award from ACM GLSVLSI 2021, a Best Paper Award Nomination from IEEE ISVLSI 2021, the Best Paper Award Honorary Selection from ACM GLSVLSI 2020, the Best Paper Award from IEEE/ACM SLIP 2016 workshop, a Best Paper Nomination from the IEEE ISQED 2016 conference, and a Best Paper Finalist Selection from the IEEE TMSCS journal in 2015, for his research contributions. He is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE TCVLSI Newsletter. He serves in the ACM SIGDA Executive Team as the Social Media Chair. He has served as an Organizing Committee Member of IEEE/ACM conferences and workshops such as IEEE International Green and Sustainable Computing (IGSC) conference, IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Networks-on-Chip (NOCS), IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Network on Chip Architectures (NOCARC), and the Workshop on Computing with Unconventional Technologies (CUT). He is also on the Technical Program Committee of several international conferences such as IEEE/ACM DAC, IEEE/ACM CODES+ISSS conference, IEEE/ACM NOCS, IEEE/ACM NOCARC, ACM GLSVLSI, IEEE ISQED, IEEE RTAS, IEEE IGSC conference, IEEE EVLSID conference, and IEEE MCSoC conference. He has served as a reviewer for many journals, including IEEE TC, IEEE TVLSI, IEEE TCAD, IEEE TMSCS, ACM TECS, ACM JETC, ACM TODAES, Elsevier JPDC.

Open Positions

I have multiple undergraduate and Ph.D. positions available in my lab. In particular, I am looking for students to work on projects related to silicon-photonic neuromorphic accelerators, in-memory computing architectures for machine learning, stochastic computing, and silicon-photonic devices and circuits for beyond terascale communication and information processing. More information can be found here.  

News

  • September 2021: Praneeth's paper on multilevel signaling based PNoC architectures is accepted in ACM JETC journal. 
  • August 2021: I am invited to serve in the ACM SIGDA Executive Team as the Social Media Chair. 
  • August 2021: UCAT lab receives a grant from NSF to explore stochastic computing-based optical neural network accelerators. 
  • July 2021: I serve in the TPC of IEEE/ACM NoCArc 2021 and IEEE IGSC 2021. 
  • July 2021: Bobby's paper wins the Best Paper Award at ACM GLSVLSI 2021! 
  • June 2021: Supreeth's paper at IEEE ISVLSI 2021 is a Best Paper Award Nominee!
  • June 2021: I serve on the TPC of IEEE/ACM NOCS 2021. 
  • May 2021: Supreeth's paper on bit-parallel stochastic computing-based in-DRAM CNN accelerator accepted at IEEE ISVLSI 2021. 
  • May 2021: I serve on the TPC of IEEE/ACM CODES+ISSS 2021.
  • May 2021: Bobby's paper on electromigration effects in 3D-stacked DRAMs accepted is a Best Paper Award Nominee at ACM GLSVLSI 2021! The winner will be decided at the virtual conference meeting.
  • April 2021: Bobby's paper on electromigration effects in 3D-stacked DRAMs accepted to appear at ACM GLSVLSI 2021. 
  • March 2021: Our paper on approximate photonic NoCs accepted in IEEE TVLSI journal.
  • March 2021: I serve as an Associate Editor for the IEEE TCVLSI Newsletter! 
  • February 2021: I serve on the TPC of IEEE RTAS.
  • February 2021: I serve on the Editorial Board of Neuromorphic Engineering as Review Editor for Frontiers in Neuroscience.
  • January 2021: Congrats to Bobby Bose on receiving ECE Undergraduate Research Fellowship (URF)!
  • December 2020: Our paper on silicon-photonic microrings-based reservoir computing accepted at IEEE VLSID 2021.
  • October 2020: I serve on the TPC of IEEE/ACM DAC 2021.
  • October 2020: I am invited to serve on the TPC of IEEE ISQED 2021.
  • September 2020: Our paper on approximate photonic NoCs wins Best Paper Award Honorable Selection at ACM GLSVLSI 2020!
  • September 2020: I serve on the Organizing Committee of IEEE/ACM NoCArc 2020 as a Panel Co-Chair. 
  • August 2020: Our paper on approximate photonic NoCs wins a Best Paper Award Nomination at ACM GLSVLSI 2020! The winner will be decided in September at the conference. 
  • August 2020: Chao-Hsuan's paper on monolithic-3D (M3D) DRAM architecture accepted at IEEE ICCD 2020!
  • August 2020: Sairam's paper on photonic NoC hardware security accepted in IEEE TCAD journal!
  • July 2020: I serve on the TPC of IEEE IGSC 2020.
  • July 2020: Sairam and Praneeth's paper on self-adaptive photonic NoCs accepted at IEEE/ACM NOCS 2020!
  • June 2020: I am invited to organize the Workshop on Computing with Unconventional Technologies at IEEE IGSC 2020.
  • June 2020: I serve on the TPC of IEEE/ACM NOCS 2020.  
  • May 2020: I serve on the TPC of ACM SIGDA / IEEE CEDA DAC Ph.D. Forum 2020. 
  • April 2020: Bobby Bose joined UCAT Lab. Welcome!
  • April 2020: I serve on the TPC of IEEE/ACM CODES+ISSS 2020. 
  • March 2020: Praneeth passed his Ph.D. written qualifier. Congratulations!
  • February 2020: A paper on approximate photonic NoCs accepted at ACM GLSVLSI 2020!
  • February 2020: Praneeth and Sairam's paper on silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) photonic interconnects accepted at ACM GLSVLSI 2020!
  • January 2020: I serve as the Web Chair of IEEE/ACM NOCS 2020.
  • December 2019: I serve on the TPC of ACM GLSVLSI 2020.
  • October 2019: I am invited to serve on the TPC of IEEE/ACM DAC 2020.
  • September 2019: Praneeth, Chao-Hsuan, and Supreeth received travel awards to present their research at ESWEEK 2019. Congratulations!

 

Research Sponsors and Collaborators