Catherine (Katie) Schuman

Assistant Professor Catherine (Katie) Schuman was recently featured on Science in Parallel, a podcast about computational science produced by the Krell Institute. In the episode, Schuman and two other researchers—Luis Ceze from the University of Washington and Bert de Jong from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory—explore the cutting edge of computer hardware.

Schuman is an expert in neuromorphic computing. In the podcast, she explained that this field–which literally translates to “brain-shaped” computing—takes inspiration from natural systems to create extremely flexible and energy-efficient hardware.

The work has an extremely broad range of potential applications, from self-driving cars that optimize their own fuel flow to nuclear radiation detectors that operate indefinitely without recharging. In her interview, Schuman described some of her current projects, illustrating that neuromorphic design is almost dizzyingly flexible.

“We’re building software for computers that don’t exist yet and we’re building computers for software that doesn’t exist yet,” she said.

Click here to listen to the full 40-minute episode (or here to read the AI-generated transcript).

Contact:

Izzie Gall (865-974-7203, egall4@utk.edu)