Todd Austin receives 2024 IEEE Computer Society B. Ramakrishna Rau Award

Todd Austin, S. Jack Hu Collegiate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, has been selected as the 2024 recipient of the B. Ramakrishna Rau Award, one of the most prestigious honors for researchers in computer architecture. The award recognizes Austin’s outstanding and lasting influence in the field, particularly his “seminal contributions to microarchitecture, performance analysis, and innovations in secure architectures.”

The award is named in memory of B. Ramakrishna Rau, a pioneer in computer microarchitecture and compiler technology. Given to a single recipient each year by the IEEE, the award is presented to an individual who has made outstanding and innovative contributions to microarchitecture and compiler/architecture interfacing over time.

Austin was selected for the award based on his record of groundbreaking research in multiple key areas of computer architecture. For instance, he achieved widespread recognition early in his career for his creation of SimpleScalar. SimpleScalar, a suite of tools that model a virtual computer system for the purposes of simulating, testing, and debugging computer designs, which became an industry and academic standard. His papers on this topic have been cited over 6,500 times to date.

Additionally, Austin’s pioneering work on runtime verification, including his projects on the DIVA fault tolerant pipeline and the Razor technique, has significantly influenced current practices in computer architecture.

More recently, Austin has focused his attention on processor security. In his Morpheus project, he proposed a “moving target” design in which the chip blocks potential attacks by encrypting and randomly reshuffling key bits of its own code and data 20 times per second—thousands of times faster than even the fastest automated attack techniques. Austin’s contributions extend to entrepreneurial ventures as well, with his work at Agita Labs focusing on next-generation privacy-enhanced computing architectures.

Austin’s numerous accolades include the Richard Newton Gigascale Systems Research Center Industrial Impact Award, the U-M Henry Russel Award, an NSF CAREER Award, the ACM Maurice Wilkes Award, the IEEE/ACM MICRO Test of Time Award, and being named a Sloan Fellow and IEEE Fellow.

Austin will be formally presented with the Rau Award at the ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO), taking place November 2-6, 2024, in Austin, TX. He will also deliver a presentation on his seminal research contributions at the conference.