OUR TEAM
Assistant Professor
Dr. Zand is the director of the Intelligent Circuits, Architectures, and Systems (iCAS) Lab at the University of South Carolina (USC), which is collaborating with and supported by several multinational companies including Intel, AMD, and Juniper Networks, as well as local companies such as Van Robotics. He has authored 50+ books and papers and received recognitions from ACM/IEEE including the best paper runner-up of ACM GLSVLSI’18, the best poster of ACM GLSVLSI’19, and best paper of IEEE ISVLSI’21, as well as featured paper in IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing. His research focus includes edge computing, neuromorphic computing, real-time AI systems, and software-hardware co-design for data-intensive and compute-intensive applications.
Ph.D. Students
Ph.D. Candidate
Mohammed received his BSc degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering, Al-Azhar University, Egypt, in 2017. After graduation, Mohammed joined the Nanoelectronics Integrated Systems Center (NISC), Egypt, as a research assistant, where he worked on Emerging Memory technologies and Memristors based Architectures. In 2019, Mohammed joined the Mixed-Signal Integrated Systems Lab, South Korea, and he worked on AI Hardware Accelerators. Currently, he is a research assistant at iCAS and a Ph.D. student at the UofSC, USA. His current research areas include Neuromorphic Computing, In-Memory Computing, Emerging Memory Technologies, and intelligent systems.
Ph.D. Student
Md Hasibul Amin is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering at the University of South Carolina. He received his B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 2019. His research interests include Hardware Accelerator Design for Machine Learning and Neuromorphic Computing. He is currently working on In-Memory Analog Computing in the ICAS Lab.
Ph.D. Student
Peyton Chandarana received his B.S.E. in Computer Engineering from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA in 2019. Prior to joining the iCAS Lab in the spring of 2021, he worked on building an Amazon Alexa skill for healthcare applications as well as aiding in researching proteins similar to COVID-19. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of South Carolina. His current interests include Neuromorphic Computing, Biologically Inspired Computing, and Bioinformatics. His research consists of Neuromorphic Computing topics in the iCAS Lab.
Ph.D. Student
MohammadReza Mohammadi received his B.Sc degree in computer engineering (hardware) from Mazandaran University of Science and Technology in 2016. He pursued his master's Also in Computer engineering (Computer Architecture) at the University of Tehran. During his master's, he worked on digital design for Machine Learning algorithms. He graduated from the University of Tehran in 2019. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student at the University of South Carolina. His research in the iCAS lab includes Neuromorphic computing, Digital design for Machine Learning algorithms, In-Memory Processing, and bio-inspired computing.
Ph.D. Student
Brendan Reidy is pursuing his Ph.D. in computer engineering at the University of South Carolina. He received his bachelor's degree in computer science in Fall 2021. His research focuses on machine learning at the edge for computer vision and natural language processing applications. Brendan has led several projects including industry collaborations, various works with mixed precision neural networks, and deployment of large language models on edge AI devices. Over multiple summers, Brendan has also interned at multiple companies to research AI applications in industry.
Ph.D. Student
Blake Seekings is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in computer science. He received his bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of South Carolina in Spring 2023. He is a recipient of the McNAIR Junior Fellows Scholarship and the Magellan Scholar Award. Blake is currently researching edge computing and neuromorphic computing. In his free time, he serves as Vice-President of both the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Gamecock Math Club. His research interests include Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Artificial Intelligence.
Ph.D. Student
Hasti Zanganeh is currently working towards a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of South Carolina, having earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics in Fall 2022. Her research focuses on machine learning and neuromorphic systems, with a background of two years in researching differential equations and partial differential equations.
Masters Students
Master's Student
Mahsa Majdzadeh Ardakani is currently a graduate student pursuing her master's degree at the University of South Carolina. Her research interests include neuromorphic computing, machine learning, deep learning, and hardware-software co-design. She enjoys exploring different areas of machine learning.
Master's Student
Aishneet Juneja is currently a graduate student working towards her master's degree at the University of South Carolina. Her research interests span across deep learning, machine learning, and edge computing. She explores various domains with an avid curiosity. Before joining the lab, she gained valuable experience as a full-stack developer, adding practical insights to her academic foundation.
Former Team Members
Spring 2023 - Summer 2023
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Georgia Institute of Technology - Student - M.S. Electrical and Computer Engineering
Summer 2022 - Spring 2023
Master's Research Assistant
Real-Time Facial Expression Recognition Using Edge AI Accelerators
Thorlabs - Software Engineering Team Lead
Spring 2020 - Summer 2022
Master's Research Assistant
Spring 2020 - Spring 2022
Master's Research Assistant
Boeing - Cloud Data Engineer
Fall 2020 - Spring 2022
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Innovation Ecosystem and Emerging Technologies Intern at Unisys