Aruna Receives EDAA Outstanding Dissertation Award

Aruna has received the prestigious 2026 EDAA Outstanding Dissertation Award in the category of “New Directions in Safety, Reliability, Security-Aware Hardware Design, Validation and Test” for the dissertation titled “Hardware-Firmware Security Co-Verification”.

The European Design and Automation Association (EDAA) is an international non-profit organization that promotes educational, scientific, and technical activities for the global electronics design and design automation community. EDAA sponsors leading conferences, workshops, and awards in electronic circuit and system design, and serves as the main sponsor of the Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE) Conference, one of the premier international conferences in electronic design automation.

Presented annually by EDAA, the Outstanding Dissertation Award recognizes exceptional doctoral research contributions in electronic design automation and computer systems. Each year, only four dissertations worldwide are selected across the following research areas:

• New directions in systems design methods and tools, simulation and validation, embedded software design and optimization for embedded, cyber-physical, secure and learning systems
• New directions in system-on-chip platforms co-design, novel architectures for future computing in design flows, and power management
• New directions in logic, physical design and CAD for analog/mixed-signal, nano-scale and emerging technologies, including quantum, neuromorphic, and biological computing
• New directions in safety, reliability, security-aware hardware design, validation and test

Through this recognition, the impact of Aruna’s research in hardware-firmware security verification and its contribution toward building more secure and trustworthy computing systems are acknowledged. The award ceremony was held on April 22, 2026, during the DATE 2026 Conference in Verona, Italy, where recipients from around the world were recognized for their outstanding doctoral achievements.

This accomplishment was made possible through the support and collaboration of many individuals throughout Aruna’s PhD journey, including his PhD advisor Prabhat Mishra, academic and industry collaborators, colleagues, and mentors. Aruna is congratulated on this outstanding achievement, and the continued impact of this research in advancing secure hardware and system design is eagerly anticipated.

The list of past recipients of the EDAA Outstanding Dissertation Award can be viewed here: www.edaa.com/edaa-outstanding-dissertation-award/