Mary Jane Irwin is an Emerita

Evan Pugh Evan Pugh (February 29, 1828 – April 29, 1864) was the first president of the Pennsylvania State University, serving from 1859 until his death in 1864. An agricultural chemist, he was responsible for securing Penn State's designation in 1863 a ...

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. She has been on the faculty at Penn State since 1977. She is an international expert in

computer architecture In computer engineering, computer architecture is a description of the structure of a computer system made from component parts. It can sometimes be a high-level description that ignores details of the implementation. At a more detailed level, the ...

. Her research and teaching interests include computer architecture, embedded and mobile computing systems design, power and reliability aware design, and emerging technologies in computing systems. Irwin was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

in 2003 for contributions to VLSI architecture and automated design.

Biography

Education

Mary Jane Irwin received her

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

in Mathematics from

Memphis State University } The University of Memphis (UofM) is a public university, public research university in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1912, the university has an enrollment of more than 22,000 students. The university maintains the Herff College of Engineering ...

in 1971, and her

M.S. A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

from the University of Illinois in 1975 and 1977, respectively. Her dissertation research on the topic of computer arithmetic was supervised by Dr. James Robertson.

Career

Mary Jane Irwin joined the faculty of the Pennsylvania State University as an

assistant professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree A docto ...

in 1977. She was promoted to the rank of full professor in 1989. She retired in 2017. Irwin has worked in the area of application-specific architectures, including the design, implementation, and field-testing of three different board level designs---the Arithmetic Cube, the MGAP and SPARTA. With her student Robert M. Owens they developed a suite of architecture, logic and circuit design tools including ARTIST, PERFLEX, LOGICIAN, and DECOMPOSER. In late 1993, Irwin worked in the area of resource constrained systems design including embedded systems that have limited battery life and limited memory space and sensor network systems that have extremely limited resources. With colleagues she developed an architectural level power simulator, SimplePower. Irwin's recent work is in mixed technology circuits. On October 1, 2019 the IEEE CEDA and ESD Alliance announced that Mary Jane Irwin will receive the 2019 Phil Kaufman Award, the EDA Industry's highest honor. She will be the first woman to receive the award.

Service to the Computing Community

Irwin has extensive service to the Computer Science research community. She is a member of the Board on Army Science and Technology, of ACM's Fellows Selection Committee, of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

Research's External Research Advisory Board, and of NAE's Committee on Membership (Chair for the Class of 2012). Previously she served as a founding co-Editor-in-Chief of ACM's Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems and as Editor-in-Chief of ACM's Transactions on the Design Automation of Electronic Systems, as an elected member of the CRA's Board of Directors, of the IEEE Computer Society's Board of Governors, of ACM's Council, and as Vice President of ACM. She was also a long-time board member of

CRA-W The Computing Research Association's Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP) has the mission of increasing the success and participation of underrepresented groups in computing research and education at all levels. In par ...

, the CRA's Committee on the Status of Women, where she is now a member emerita.

Personal life

Mary Jane Irwin was married in July 1966. She and her husband of 55 years have one son, John, who is also a computer scientist, and two grandchildren, Kai and Milo.

Honors and awards

* 2021 The CRA A. Nico Habermann Award * Irwin received an Honorary Doctorate from Chalmers University, Sweden. * 2019

Phil Kaufman Award The Phil Kaufman Award was established in 1994 by the EDA Consortium (now the Electronic System Design Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community) to recognize individuals for their impact on electronic design by their contributions to electronic de ...

of the Electronic System Design Alliance and the

IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

* 2012 ASP-DAC Ten-Year Retrospective Most Influential Paper Award * 2010 The ACM Athena Lecturer Award, ACM, having been separately nominated by both the Computer Architecture and the Design Automation research communities. * 2009 inducted into the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

AAAS * 2007 Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award * 2006

Computing Research Association The Computing Research Association (CRA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit association of North American academic departments of computer science, computer engineering, and related fields; laboratories and centers in industry, government, and academia enga ...

(CRA) Distinguished Service Award * 2005

ACM Distinguished Service Award The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

* 2004 Marie R. Pistilli Women in Electronic Design Automation Award * 2003 IEEE/CAS VLSI Transactions Best Paper of the Year Award * 2003 inducted into the NAE * 1996 ACM Fellow * 1994

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

Fellow

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Irwin, Mary Jane. University of Memphis alumni University of Illinois alumni Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Pennsylvania State University faculty American women computer scientists American computer scientists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Fellow Members of the IEEE Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Electronic engineering award winners American women academics