Computer science professor named fellow of National Academy of Inventors

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has named Anand Sivasubramaniam, distinguished professor of computer science and engineering and associate head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the Penn State School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), a fellow. It is the highest professional distinction awarded to academic inventors, with only a few outstanding inventors earning the distinction each year. 

With the rest of the 2024 NAI Class of Fellows, Sivasubramaniam will be presented a medal by a senior official of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on June 26 at the NAI 14th annual meeting in Atlanta. 

“I am delighted to receive this honor in recognition of my work over the past two decades in the area of power management for data centers and high-end computer systems,” Sivasubramaniam said. “Data centers were just beginning to emerge when we started work in this area. We use them every day to host enterprise infrastructure, internet services and cloud services.” 

The NAI is comprised of universities, government agencies and nonprofit research institutes. More than 4,600 individual members affiliated with 260 institutions worldwide network and collaboratively invest in innovation through programs and conferences. 

The NAI Fellows Program distinguishes members who exemplify the NAI’s commitment to creating societal and economic impact with their membership’s inventions. Fellows help create inventions which contribute to major advancements in science and consumer technologies, helping generate more than $3 trillion in revenue and millions of jobs for workers around the world.  

“Anand’s inventions show his great foresight in solving important and challenging real-world problems,” said Tom La Porta, director of EECS, William E. Leonhard Endowed Chair and Evan Pugh Professor. “Data center power consumption is one of our largest societal and technical concerns, given the growth of AI and its reliance on data centers. Anand’s inventions greatly help mitigate this problem.” 

Recognition as a NAI fellow is another mark on Sivasubramaniam’s growing list of academic and professional accomplishments. As a Penn State faculty member for 30 years, Sivasubramaniam has spearheaded research in operating systems and cloud computing, computer architecture, datacenter infrastructures, and mobile devices. Prior to this distinction by the NAI, the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers named him a fellow in 2012 and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) named him a fellow in 2017, the highest member titles available in both organizations.  

Additionally, Sivasubramaniam has received awards from his time spent at IBM, HP and Google. He was named a distinguished scientist by the ACM and received a faculty teaching award from the Penn State Department of Computer Science and Engineering. 

Sivasubramaniam said he has no intention of slowing down. He is already looking toward the future of his research in power management. 

“Energy has become the most limiting resource in the construction and operation of data centers today,” Sivasubramaniam said. “Infrastructures for running AI workloads demand immense power, and this problem will only exacerbate in the future with our increasing reliance on AI services.” 

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