Folks have anticipated nice issues from Alice Parker, who was raised in a household of distinguished scientists and engineers. And Parker, a professor {of electrical} and laptop engineering on the College of Southern California has delivered. She helped develop high-level (behavioral) synthesis, an automatic laptop design course of that assists with the transformation of a behavioral description of {hardware} right into a mannequin of its logic and reminiscence circuits.
Her father, a chemist, was on the group that first synthesized vitamin B1 at pharmaceutical firm Merck in Charlotte, N.C. In 1941 her uncle Vannevar Bush was appointed the primary science advisor to the U.S. Congress.
Parker is at present serving to to develop a synthetic mind that may replicate the capabilities of neural mechanisms believed to be necessary for studying and reminiscence.
This yr IEEE President-Elect Tom Coughlin interviewed Parker for her IEEE Historical past Middle oral historical past. It’s now accessible on the Engineering and Know-how Historical past Wiki. This text relies on that interview.
From CAD to mind modeling
Parker’s work is concentrated on 4 areas: biomimetic neuromorphic circuits, biomimetic stereo imaginative and prescient, retinal and cortical neuromorphic analog circuits, and nanotechnology.
Biomimetic neuromorphic circuits mimic the mind’s short-term reminiscence. Biomimetic stereo imaginative and prescient helps methods understand objects in three dimensions. Retinal and cortical neuromorphic analog circuits simulate neural networks discovered within the retina and the visible cortex.
In collaboration with Chongwu Zhou, {an electrical} engineering professor at USC in Los Angeles, Parker is combining these analysis areas by means of the design of a biomimetic real-time cortex (BioRC), basically a synthetic mind.
They created the primary synapse made with carbon-nanotube transistors in addition to the primary analog circuit designs of astrocytes (mind cells) that work together with circuits that mannequin neurons to duplicate the capabilities of neural mechanisms believed to be necessary for studying and reminiscence.
“We’re how the mind works biologically, and we’re pushing it down a stage and seeing what we are able to emulate,” Parker says. “Can we emulate schizophrenia? Can we emulate numerous issues which are organic?” She mentioned the mission has been “a variety of enjoyable.”
BioRC most likely would be the final huge factor she works on throughout her profession, she says.
Earlier than she began creating the substitute mind, Parker constructed a sudoku-solving system that employed simulated annealing. The system, created to lower the time it took to guage sudoku competitions, can provide rivals hints if they’re having a troublesome time.
To resolve a sudoku puzzle, the system makes use of image-processing methods that discover imperfections and detect the borders of objects.
It’s 100% correct when judging puzzles which have been stuffed out on paper by hand, based on a analysis paper written by Parker’s group. The system will help members precisely full a sudoku 95 % of the time, and it might remedy a puzzle itself in lower than 50 seconds, the group says.
STEM: A household affair
Parker’s curiosity in pursuing a STEM profession started in elementary faculty in Birmingham, Ala., after her mother and father purchased her chemistry kits. On the time, her father was a professor on the College of Alabama at Birmingham.
She was “barely capable of learn,” she recollects, so her father described what the mission was so she may do it by herself within the laboratory he had in-built a rest room at dwelling.
Her mother and father additionally purchased her older brother engineering kits, and Parker helped him full them. Collectively the siblings constructed transistor radios and stuck damaged electronics round the home, reminiscent of a tv and an electrical prepare.
As a highschool scholar, Parker participated in lots of science gala’s and received a number of awards for her tasks. Her science-fair success caught the eye of a trainer who inspired Parker to pursue a level in electrical engineering, and he helped her plot her profession path.
“I used to be at all times within the laptop and digital issues,” Parker informed Coughlin within the interview.
She was awarded a partial scholarship to attend North Carolina State College, in Raleigh, the place her father taught chemistry after leaving UAB. Whereas an undergraduate EE scholar there, she bought an internship at Southern Providers Co., in Charlotte. The corporate offered engineering providers for 5 energy firms together with Alabama Energy, Florida Energy, and Georgia Energy.
At Southern she discovered learn how to use an IBM 360 laptop—which she mentioned was a helpful ability later in her profession.
After graduating with a bachelor’s diploma in 1970, Parker determined to pursue a grasp’s diploma in electrical engineering at Stanford. The college’s brochure persuaded her to use to its graduate program, she says, as a result of it featured Michael A. Arbib, a biomedical engineering professor who studied mind modeling.
Parker thought that line of analysis was “very cool,” she says, and he or she utilized to Stanford so she may work with Arbib. However by the point she began there, he had left to affix the College of Massachusetts in Amherst.
She accomplished her thesis at Stanford below the steering of Frederick Terman, whose analysis centered on vacuum tubes, circuits, and instrumentation. Terman, who’s seen as a Silicon Valley founding father, served as 1941 president of the Institute of Radio Engineers, an IEEE predecessor society.
Whereas at Stanford, Parker says, she fell in love with California. However after receiving her grasp’s diploma in 1971, she returned to North Carolina. She earned her doctorate in 1975 in electrical engineering from N.C. State however mentioned she regretted leaving California.
She joined Carnegie Mellon that very same yr as an assistant professor. There she met her husband. They spent virtually 5 years in Pittsburgh, then the couple determined to maneuver to a hotter locale after a horrible winter storm.
“It was minus 8 °C. The glass in the home’s storm door shattered, and the automobile wouldn’t begin,” she recollects. She knew then, she says, that she was able to return to the Golden State.
She joined USC in 1980 and has labored there since. All through her 40 years on the college, she has held a number of management positions together with division director for laptop engineering, dean of graduate research, and vice provost for analysis.
She has obtained quite a few awards for her educating, together with the 2008 South Central Students Service Award from South Central School, a 2006 USC Viterbi College of Engineering educating award, and a 1990 U.S. Nationwide Science Basis School Award for Girls Scientists and Engineers.
“USC has been a fantastic expertise,” Parker says. “I can’t think about being anyplace else.”
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