Gunar Schirner

Gunar Schirner is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University's College of Engineering. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from the University of California, Irvine, and a B.Sc. from Berufsakademie Berlin. His research focuses on embedded systems, cyber-physical systems, and hardware/software co-design, with emphasis on embedded vision and system-level methodologies.

Education:

• Ph.D. & M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Irvine (2008, 2005)
• Bachelor's in Computer Engineering, Berufsakademie Berlin, Germany (1998)

Research Interests: Embedded system modeling, real-time AI on edge devices, accelerator-rich computing architectures, and assistive robotics. His work bridges algorithm design with system-level implementation, including projects on neural-controlled prosthetics and marine mammal monitoring via passive acoustic sensing.

Grants & Collaborations: Schirner leads/navigate grants totaling over $2M from the National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Army, and Office of Naval Research, including a $13M Army contract for distributed sensing research. He co-directs the Embedded Systems Laboratory, advancing heterogeneous platform design and embedded vision systems.

Students & Impact: His advisees, including Mo Han and Yagmur Gunay, have won best paper awards at PETRA 2019. He actively integrates industry experience (e.g., Alcatel-Lucent) into teaching, mentoring students in both academia and industry.