UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Abhronil Sengupta, assistant professor of electrical engineering, has received the 2019 Outstanding Young Author Award from the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Circuits and Systems Society (CASS).

Sengupta received the award for his paper “Proposal for an All-Spin Artificial Neural Network: Emulating Neural and Synaptic Functionalities Through Domain Wall Motion in Ferromagnets,” which was published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems (Volume 10, Issue 6, Dec. 2016). The paper was co-authored by Yong Shim, component design engineer at Intel, and Kaushik Roy, the Edward G. Tiedemann Jr. Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University.

The paper discusses Sengupta and his co-authors’ efforts to develop a neurocomputer that mimics the human brain via nanoelectronics components in order to harness the brain’s ability to efficiently recognize problems. The researchers developed a device capable of mapping synaptic and neuronal function in the brain using transistors intended for inter-layer network communications. This device is possibly the first of its kind in that it is capable of imitating both neurons and synapses, according to Sengupta.

According to the IEEE CASS website, the intention of the society’s awards is to “illuminate the accomplishments of CAS Society members and celebrate their dedication and contributions both within the field and to the CAS Society.” Specifically, the Outstanding Young Author Award honors an author, 30 years old or younger, who has published a particularly meritorious paper in any of the CAS Society’s outlets during the past three years.

“I feel fortunate and humbled to be recognized by the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society,” said Sengupta. “This award is in support of young academicians and I feel this will serve as an important stepping stone in my career to further my research on spintronics-enabled neuromorphic computing.”

Sengupta received his doctorate degree in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University in 2018 and his bachelor of engineering degree from Jadavpur University in India in 2013. He worked as a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Fellow at the University of Hamburg in Germany in 2012, and as a graduate research intern at Circuit Research Labs at Intel Labs in 2016 and at Facebook Reality Labs in 2017.

Sengupta has published more than 50 articles in referred journals and conferences and holds four granted/pending U.S. patents. He has been awarded the IEEE SiPS Best Paper Award (2018), Schmidt Science Fellows Award nominee (2017), the Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship (2017), the CSPIN Student Presenter Award (2015) and the Birck Fellowship (2013).