Jiaqi Gu has been named a recipient of an Outstanding Dissertation Award from The University of Texas at Austin Graduate School for his dissertation "Light-AI Interaction: Bridging Photonics and Artificial Intelligence via Cross-Layer Hardware/Software Co-Design." 

The Outstanding Dissertation Awards were established in 1979 to recognize exceptional work and to encourage the highest levels of scholarship, research and writing. Each year, three awards are given. Of these, one is selected for the Michael H. Granof Award, the university’s top dissertation. 

“The winners are a testament to the quality of teaching, research and support in graduate education that transpires on the Forty Acres,” said Sarah Ades, senior vice provost for Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and dean of the Graduate School. “Each winner has done something extraordinary—the winners have conducted groundbreaking research and inspired others to discover their potential and enabled them to succeed.”

Jiaiq Gu joined Arizona State University as an assistant professor in 2023. During his time at Texas ECE he was supervised by Prof. David Z. Pan and Prof. Ray Chen.