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Hai "Helen" Li

Marie Foote Reel E'46 Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Electrical and Computer Engineering
RM130 Hudson Hall, Box 90291, Durham, NC 27701
#407 Wilkinson Building, 534 Research Drive, Durham, NC 27701
Office hours Appointment by email hai.li@duke.edu  

Overview


Hai (Helen) Li is the Marie Foote Reel E’46 Distinguished Professor and Department Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Duke University. She received her B.S. and M.S. from Tsinghua University and her Ph.D. from Purdue University. Her research interests include neuromorphic circuits and systems for brain-inspired computing, machine learning acceleration and trustworthy AI, conventional and emerging memory design and architecture, and software and hardware co-design. …

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Marie Foote Reel E'46 Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering · 2024 - Present Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering · 2020 - Present Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering · 2022 - Present Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Professor of Computer Science · 2020 - Present Computer Science, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

In the News


Published April 8, 2025
Duke Researchers at the Forefront of the Next Generation of Wireless
Published March 25, 2025
Duke Honors 31 New Distinguished Professors
Published January 8, 2025
Two Pratt Faculty Receive Top Honor for Inventors

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Recent Publications


EDALearn: A Comprehensive RTL-to-Signoff EDA Benchmark for Democratized and Reproducible ML for EDA Research

Conference IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, Digest of Technical Papers, ICCAD · April 9, 2025 The application of Machine Learning (ML) in Electronic Design Automation (EDA) for Very Large-Scale Integration (VLSI) design has garnered significant research attention. Despite the requirement for extensive datasets to build effective ML models, most stu ... Full text Cite

Advancements in Content-Addressable Memory (CAM) Circuits: State-of-the-Art, Applications, and Future Directions in the AI Domain

Journal Article IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers · January 1, 2025 — Content-Addressable Memory (CAM) circuits, distinguished by their ability to accelerate data retrieval through a direct content-matching function, are increasingly crucial in the era of AI and increasing data computation. With the rise of AI models, hard ... Full text Cite

A Survey: Collaborative Hardware and Software Design in the Era of Large Language Models

Journal Article IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine · January 1, 2025 The rapid development of large language models (LLMs) has significantly transformed the field of artificial intelligence, demonstrating remarkable capabilities in natural language processing and moving towards multi-modal functionality. These models are in ... Full text Cite
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Recent Grants


Center of Neuromorphic Computing under Extreme Environments

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by University of Southern California · 2024 - 2029

DoD Center of Excellence in Advanced Computing and Software (COE-ACS)

ResearchCo-Principal Investigator · Awarded by Georgia State University · 2023 - 2028

PARTNER: Neuro-Inspired AI for the Edge at UTSA (NAIAD)

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by The University of Texas at San Antonio · 2023 - 2027

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Education, Training & Certifications


Purdue University · 2004 Ph.D.