Abu Sebastian received a B. E. (Hons.) degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS
Pilani, India and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering (minor in Mathematics) from Iowa
State University. Since 2006, he is a Research Staff Member at IBM Research - Zurich in Rüschlikon,
Switzerland. He was a contributor to several key projects in the space of storage and memory
technologies and currently manages the research effort on in-memory computing at IBM Research -
Zurich. He also serves on the leadership team of the IBM AI Hardware Center, headquartered in
Albany, NY. He has published over 180 articles in journals and conference proceedings. He also holds
over 50 granted patents.
Dr. Sebastian is a co-recipient of the 2009 IEEE Control Systems Technology Award and the 2009 IEEE
Transactions on Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper Award. In 2013 he received the IFAC
Mechatronic Systems Young Researcher Award for his contributions to the field of mico-/nanoscale
mechatronic systems. In 2015 he was awarded the European Research Council (ERC) consolidator
grant and in 2020, he was awarded an ERC Proof-of-concept grant. He is an IBM Master Inventor
since 2016. He was named Principal and Distinguished Research Staff Member in 2018 and 2020,
respectively. In 2019 he received the Ovshinsky Lectureship Award for his contributions to "Phase-
change materials for cognitive computing".