Intel Corporation has selected 10 university scientists for its 2025 Outstanding Researcher Awards, recognizing academic projects that advance semiconductor technology and artificial intelligence. Among the honorees are Indian American professors Vijay Raghunathan of Purdue University and Visvesh Sathe of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The annual program, directed by Intel’s Corporate Research Council, highlights university studies aimed at solving critical computing challenges.
Vijay Raghunathan, a professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue, was honored for his research on multimodal systems and heterogeneous AI processing.
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His project focuses on coordinating tasks across central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), and neural processing units (NPUs). By streamlining communication across these distinct processing engines, his team improved performance and energy efficiency for multimodal workloads, vision-language architectures, and state space networks.
Raghunathan completed his foundational academic training in India, earning a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. He later relocated to the United States for graduate studies, receiving his master’s degree and doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
In addition to his research lab at Purdue, he serves as the university’s Vice President for Global Partnerships and Programs, maintaining academic links between American institutions and Indian universities, including dual-degree initiatives with IIT Madras.
Visvesh Sathe, an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, was recognized for his research on runtime thermal management in 3D system-on-chip architectures.
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As microchip designs stack components vertically, managing internal heat becomes vital for device stability. Sathe developed compact, digital temperature sensors powered by supply voltage (Vdd) that feature high precision and simplified single-point calibration. Validated across physical test chips, the technology allows integrated circuits to monitor dynamic thermal changes to maintain energy efficiency.
Sathe built his early academic background in India, earning a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. He then moved to the U.S. to complete his Master of Science and PhD degrees at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Before joining academia, he worked as a circuit designer in the technology sector, focusing on low-power processor architectures.
Both researchers received their primary undergraduate engineering degrees at top Indian technology institutes before pursuing doctorates in the U.S., where their current work contributes to high-performance computing hardware.