Alice C. Parker

Alice Cline Parker is an American electrical engineer. Her early research studied electronic design automation; later in her career, her interests shifted to neuromorphic engineering, biomimetic architecture for computer vision, analog circuits, carbon nanotube field-effect transistors, and nanotechnology.[1][2][3][4] She is Dean's Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering of the University of Southern California.[5]

Education and career

Parker's father, Joseph K. Cline, was a biochemist who (with Robert R. Williams) first synthesized thiamine; because of him, she grew up interested in science from a young age.[2][4] Her parents divorced when she was young, and had no money to put her through college;[4] her career in engineering was set by a high school physics teacher, who encouraged her to apply for an engineering scholarship, with which she supported her education.[2][4] She became one of two female engineering students at North Carolina State University (NCSU),[4] where Wayland P. Seagraves became a mentor.[1][4]

After graduating from NCSU in 1970,[1] Parker went to Stanford University on an NSF Fellowship,[4] but was frustrated by her inability to find a faculty member who worked on brain modeling; Stanford professor Michael A. Arbib, who worked in this area, had recently moved to another university.[4] She earned a master's degree in electrical engineering there,[5] before marrying and following her new husband back to North Carolina. Still unable to find a research program in biomedical engineering, she returned to graduate study in computer engineering at NCSU, working on microprogrammable computer architecture with James W. Gault,[4] and completing her Ph.D. in 1975.[5][6]

She was an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University from 1975 to 1980,[7] recruited there by Angel G. Jordan, and began working in high-level synthesis, the automated design of computer hardware from an algorithm describing its intended behavior.[4] In 1980, she moved to the University of Southern California,[7] on the recommendation of her Army Research Office grant officer, Jimmie Suttle.[4] She has been a full professor since 1991,[7] and has served the university as Vice Provost for Research and Vice Provost of Graduate Studies.[4]

Recognition

Parker was named a Fellow of the IEEE in 1991, "for contributions to design automation in the areas of high-level synthesis, hardware descriptive languages, and design representation".[8] She was the 2009 winner of the Sharon Keillor Award for Women in Engineering Education.[9] She was named to the NCSU Electrical and Computer Engineering Hall of Fame in 2017.[1]

References
  1. "Alice C. Parker", Hall of Fame, NCSU Electrical and Computer Engineering, retrieved 2021-05-30
  2. Conversations on Gender Equity: Alice Parker, Springer Nature, retrieved 2021-05-30
  3. Banegas, Diane E. (27 January 2009), "Synthetic Brains: Researchers study the feasibility of brains made from carbon nanotubes", Research news, National Science Foundation, retrieved 2021-06-03
  4. Parker, Alice Cline (2020), "From Silicon to the Brain Using Microelectronics as a Bridge", in Parker, Alice Cline; Lunardi, Leda (eds.), Women in Microelectronics, Springer, pp. 173–186, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-46377-9_12
  5. "Alice Cline Parker", Viterbi Faculty Directory, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, retrieved 2021-06-03
  6. Alice C. Parker at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  7. Positions held, 31 July 1997, retrieved 2021-06-03
  8. IEEE Fellows directory, IEEE, retrieved 2021-05-30
  9. Ming Hsieh Department Professor Wins High Honor: The American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Sharon Keillor Award for 2009 goes to Alice Parker, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, 20 May 2009, retrieved 2021-06-03
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