Ken Shepard received the B. S. E. degree from Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, in 1987 where he was valedictorian of his graduating class and received the Phi Beta Kappa prize for the highest academic standing. He went on to receive the M. S. and Ph. D. degrees in electrical engineering with a minor in physics from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 1988 and 1992, respectively, on a fellowship from the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation. His Ph. D. research, also funded by a special “Creativity in Engineering” grant from the National Science Foundation, focussed on the physics of nanoscale devices. He was awarded the Hertz Foundation doctoral thesis prize in 1992, given each year to the best Ph. D. thesis from among Hertz Fellows.

Current research interests focus on integrated molecular diagnostic platforms, single-molecule bioelectronics, imaging technologies and large, complex data sets produced by these platforms. Embedded computing and power-efficient digital processors. He received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 1998, the Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award from the Columbia Engineering School in 1999, a Best Paper Award at the 2001 International Conference on Computer Design, best paper runner-up at the 2003 International Symposium on Asynchronous Circuits, and a winning entry in the 2003 ISLPED Low-Power Design Contest. We was given a Faculty Development Award in 2006 by the New York State Office of Science Technology and Academic Research. In 2008, he was named a finalist for the Blavatnik Award for young faculty by the New York Academy of Science.

Professor Shepard was program chair for the 2002 International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD) and general chair of the 2003 ICCD. He was program chair of ISQED 2002 and conference co-chair of ISQED 2003 and has served on the program committees of ISSCC, VLSI Symposium, DAC, ICCD, ICCAD, GLS-VLSI, ISQED, and Tau. He was Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on VLSI from 1998-2001 and is currently Associate Editor of IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits. He is a Fellow of the IEEE. Professor Shepard participates in the Focus Center Research Program Center for Circuit and Systems Solutions.