Posts Tagged ‘Marie Pistilli’
Tuesday, June 7th, 2016
A big 10-gallon hats-off to Charles Alpert & Team for injecting fresh creativity and energy into the 53rd annual Design Automation Conference. Those who knew little about Alpert, and I’m among those few, were overwhelmed by the DAC General Chair and Host of the Opening Session who took the stage Monday morning in Austin.
Straightaway, Charles shed his corporate persona in favor of his Texas roots, welcomed us all to his home town, asked that we call him Chuck, offered photos and first names only of the entire DAC Executive Committee, showed us a map of a new and innovate layout for the DAC Exhibit Hall – including a central boulevard that Baron Haussmann himself would have celebrated – and then asked us to help him do two things:
Keep Austin Weird, apparently a principle plank in the City’s Charter, and ergo to Keep DAC Weird, as well as Nerdy, Fun and Alive. And no sooner did Chuck extend this request, than it was …
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Tags: 53rd Design Automation Conference, Anna Balazs, Anne Cirkel, Bob Smith, CEDA, Charles Alpert, Chris Rowen, DAC 2016, ESD Alliance, Jiang Hu, Lars Reger, Marie Pistilli, Michael McNamara, Nicole Amoaka, NXP/Freescale, Pat Pistilli, Peng Li, Sharon Hu, Shishpal Rawat, Soha Hassoun, Steve Levitan, Wally Rhines
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Thursday, May 19th, 2016
The spirit of Marie R. Pistilli will be writ large at the Design Automation Conference in Austin in June, because the woman who is receiving this year’s MRP Women in Engineering Achievement Award embodies everything that Marie admired in a technologist:
Intelligence. Courage. Articulate leadership. Powerful work ethic. Technical contribution. A track record of mentoring women in a field that has been incredibly resistant to people who are different.
Yep, Dr. Soha Hassoun, Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science at Tufts University, has all the strengths of character that Marie admired, but there’s more: Prof. Hassoun is also well-spoken, funny, charming, and beautiful.
Just icing on the cake and not part of the reason Prof. Hassoun deserves the award, but all characteristics that Marie would have admired as well, and did admire – particularly as Hassoun is a permanent member of the DAC Family: She was General Chair of DAC in 2013, the conference being one of Marie’s deepest passions.
Indeed the greatest honor that could be brought to the memory of the remarkable Marie Pistilli is to select the equally remarkable Soha Hassoun as standard-bearer for outstanding achievement in EDA – woman or man – at the first DAC after Marie’s tragic passing last November.
Kudos to the committee for selecting Dr. Hassoun. Well done!
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Tags: Design Automation Conference, Dr. Soha Hassoun, ICCAD, Marie Pistilli, Marie R. Pistilli Women in Engineering Achievement Award, Tufts University, University of Washington
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Thursday, November 19th, 2015
The extraordinary Marie Pistilli passed away on Saturday, November 14th, six difficult weeks after sustaining profound injuries in an auto accident in early October.
News of her death came on the morning after the terrible events in Paris, and for a time it was difficult to sort out the different threads of grief and sorrow. The loss of many strangers blended with the loss of a single individual that I have admired and known personally for many years.
Now, some days later, it is clear that the world is still turning, the sun still comes up each morning and the stars are still arrayed overhead at night. The situation in Europe continues to be troubling and complex, but it is no longer layered over the emotions surrounding the loss of Marie.
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Tags: Marie Pistilli
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Thursday, October 22nd, 2015
Matt Wood, in his poignant journaling about Marie Pistilli, is only wrong in one way: Marie is not the only one living on borrowed time, we are all living on borrowed time. We do not, however, all live on time travel time.
For that, you have to be really special. You have to be that one-in-a-zillion person who gets an invite to ride in a Time Machine. And not just any time machine, but my Time Machine!
A highly innovative craft of my own creation in which I am at the controls in the cockpit, and my carefully chosen passengers just sit back and enjoy the ride. Marie Pistilli, naturally, is among that handful of unique individuals who deserves an invite to travel in my craft, and Pat of course. Today’s destination?
1999! (As in, let’s party like it’s …)
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Tags: 36th DAC, Design Automation Conference, Marie Pistilli, MP Associates, New Orleans, Pat Pistilli, Time Travel, Workshop for Women in Design Automation
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Thursday, June 11th, 2015
Something special happened Wednesday night this week at DAC, something magical in fact. Dozens of highly educated Design Automation professionals gathered for an intimate dinner in a private dining room at Kuleto’s on Powell Street in San Francisco for a first-time event.
Sponsored by the DAC EC and hosted by Dr. Soha Hassoun, Computer Science Department Chair at Tufts University in Boston, and Dr. Patrick Groeneveld, Synopsys Scientist and former CTO at Magma Design Automation, attendees included EE/CS professors from around the world, numerous post-doctoral fellows and PhD candidates, several 2015 Richard Newton Scholarship winner, as well as multiple design professionals from some of the largest commercial enterprises in EDA.
As attendees arrived, energized and/or exhausted from a long day at Day Three of DAC, Dr. Hassoun welcomed the gathering warmly and asked that people choose their seats carefully for the meal about to be served: Please do not sit next to anyone you already know!
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Tags: DAC, Marie Pistilli, Patrick Groeneveld, Soha Hassoun, Women in Design Automation
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Thursday, May 22nd, 2014
Thanks to Nanette Collins, long-time EDA PR consul, we have a chance this week to catch up with Marie Pistilli. Marie co-founded DAC with her husband Pat in 1964.
Although Marie and Pat Pistilli have been fixtures at the conference they founded 51 years ago, they will not be in San Francisco this year. Pat’s recovering from surgery and the doctors have ordered him to stay home.
I can’t imagine not having the Pistilli’s at DAC, so I was very happy that Nanette was able to speak with Marie. They spoke by phone on May 19th.
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Tags: DAC, Design Automation Conference, Marie Pistilli, Marie R. Pistilli Award, MP Associates, Nanette Collins, Pat Pistilli
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Monday, June 3rd, 2013
The Design Automation Conference is mostly about People who need People, so my Top Ten list from Day 1 in Austin here at the 50th DAC is about just that: The Luckiest People in the World.
No. 10) Rushing up to Room 18 on Level 4 of the Austin Convention Center to attend the DFM&Y Workshop at 9 am, only to find that I couldn’t get in because I hadn’t paid. Why is this disappointment on the list of favorites?
Because on my way back down to Level 1, I ran into Jill Jacbos who’s been working overtime here in Austin on behalf of Accellera Systems Initiative (Stan Krolikoski received the 2013 Leadership Award at the 7 am breakfast today), the North American SystemC Users Group Meeting (taking place all day today on Level 3), and Jim Hogans’ Hot Zone Party tonight at Austin City Limit’s Moody Theater.
Jim’s efforts, and those of the folks helping him, are all to raise money for his Heart of Technology charity, which is donating funds raised in Austin to CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of Travis County, Texas. If you want to donate, you can do so at Jim’s website.
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Tags: Accellera Systems Initiative, Ann Steffora Mutschler, Asleep at the Wheel, Chenming Hu, DAC 2013, Daniela De Venuto, Dave Sinofsky, DFM&Y Workshop, DXCorr Design, Global Forum at DAC, GlobalFoundries/ATIC, Heart of Technology, Hot Zone Party, Jill Jacobs, Jim Hogan, Lee Leffingwell, Marie Pistilli, Marie R. Pistilli Award, Mentor Graphics, Nanette Collins, Nirmalya Ghosh, North American SystemC Users Group Meeting, Pat Pistilli, Phil Kaufman Award, Sagar Reddy, Sonia Harrison, Stan Krolikoski, Synopsys, View Logic, Wally Rhines, Yervant Zorian
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