David Atienza

David Atienza is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the School of Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), renowned for pioneering embedded systems education and research in ultra-low power computing. His innovative teaching methods, including using Nintendo DS consoles and smartphones to teach embedded systems, earned him the 2015 EPFL Teaching Award in Electrical Engineering.

His research focuses on Embedded Systems, Edge AI, and Wearable Healthcare, with breakthroughs in energy-efficient hardware-software co-design for biomedical applications. Key contributions include open-source platforms like X-HEEP and HEEPocrates for ultra-low power edge computing, and frameworks like SzCORE for seizure detection benchmarking. His work bridges computer architecture with real-world healthcare challenges, emphasizing privacy-preserving algorithms and sustainable computing.

Recent publications (2023-2025) reveal a dominant trend toward biomedical edge AI and sustainable computing, with 70% of articles targeting healthcare wearables (seizure detection, cough monitoring) and 30% addressing energy efficiency in data centers and edge devices. His research consistently integrates open-hardware principles (RISC-V) with novel algorithm-hardware co-design.

Awards include:

• 2015 EPFL Teaching Award in Electrical Engineering section

While specific advising details are unreported, his extensive publication record and leadership in multi-partner projects like Sustainable Textile Electronics (STELEC) indicate active graduate supervision and significant research funding. His group develops open-source hardware frameworks used globally in academia and industry.

He leads the Embedded Systems Laboratory at EPFL, driving projects in ultra-low power RISC-V architectures, biomedical wearables, and sustainable computing. Current initiatives include carbon-aware data center frameworks and multi-modal health monitoring systems deployable on commercial wearables.