Rice professor is changing the world, Forbes says

BY PATRICK KURP
Special to Rice News

Krishna Palem, the Ken and Audrey Kennedy Professor of Computer Science at Rice University, has been named one of the “18 Indian Scientists Who are Changing the World” in the March 2 issue of Forbes India.

Palem, a native of India, joined the Rice faculty in 2007 and since 2010 has served as director of the

Krishna Palem

Institute on Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics, a joint project between Rice and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. His research focuses on embedded computing, including low-energy computing and nanoelectronics.

Among the innovations cited by Forbes as having benefited India are Palem’s energy-efficient microchip and a solar-powered electronic notepad, called the I-slate, which is now being tested in the nation’s schools. Palem’s research, the magazine reported, has demonstrated that “the energy consumed by a computation could be traded for its accuracy.”

“Rice’s ties to India are significant, both in terms of the makeup of our own faculty and student body, and in terms of our ongoing relationships with Indian universities and industry,” said Ned Thomas, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering at Rice. “Krishna Palem’s efforts allow Rice to make a direct social impact in India. His pioneering work in ‘pruned’ microchip technology is improving the lives of people in his homeland and elsewhere.”

–Patrick Kurp is a science writer in the George R. Brown School of Engineering.