I received the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA in 2003 and the M. Eng. degree in systems engineering and B.Eng. degree in information science & engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, in 1997 and 1994, respectively.

I have been a Professor of ECE at UCSB since July 2019, where I'm affiliated with the Computer Engineering (CE) Program. From August 2004 to June 2019,  I was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University as an assistant, associate, and then a full professor. I was was a member of Faculty of Neuroscience and the Graduate Faculty of School of Graduate Studies, Health Science Center at Texas A&M.

My research interests are in integrated circuits and systems,  learning algorithms and circuits for neuromorphic (a.k.a brain-inspired) computing, VLSI computer-aided design, machine learning and its hardware realization in VLSI, and computational brain modeling.  I am a co-editor of the book, entitled "Simulation and Verification of Electronic and Biological Systems" (Springer, 2011), co-edited one additional book, and authored and co-authored over 200 journal and conference publications, and seven book chapters.

My work has been recognized by various distinctions including the ICCAD Ten Year Retrospective Most Influential Paper Award in 2019, four IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC) Best Paper Awards in 2003, 2008, 2011, and 2016, the ISCAS Honorary Mention Best Paper Award from the Neural Systems and Applications Technical Committee of IEEE Circuits and Systems (CAS) Society at IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) in 2016,  the IEEE/ACM William J. McCalla ICCAD Best Paper Award from  IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD) in 2012, the US National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2008, two Inventor Recognition Awards from Microelectronics Advanced Research Corporation (MARCO) in 2006 and 2007, two  Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC)  Inventor Recognition Awards in 2001 and 2004. At the 50th IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference in 2013, I was honored with the Best Paper Hat Trick Award for receiving the prestigious DAC best paper award three times,   the DAC Prolific Author Award, and the DAC Top 10 Author in Fifth Decade Award. I recieved several Best Paper Award nominations from ICCAD.  At Texas A&M, I was recongnized with the 2018-2019 Eugene E. Webb Faculty Fellow, 2013-2014 William and Montine P. Head Fellow, 2011-2012 TEES Fellow Award from the College of Engineering, and the ECE Outstanding Professor Award in 2008.

I was an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems from 2008 to 2013 and an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II from 2008 to 2016. I have been on the committees of many international conferences and workshops such as DAC, ISLPED, IJCNN, ICCAD, ICCD, ISQED, ISCAS, TAU and FAC, ICCAD Best Paper Award Committee, and the selection committee for ACM Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Award in Electronic Design Automation. He served as the technical program committee chair for the ACM TAU Workshop in 2009 and general chair for the 2010 Workshop. I was a member of the Executive Committee and the Vice President for Technical Activities of IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA) from Jan. 2016 to Dec. 2017.

I have consulted for Intel Corporation and several Silicon-Valley startup companies. I am a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the ACM.