The Award serves the purpose of promoting the most impactful doctoral student work, providing the students with exposure to the community and prospective employers, and supporting interaction between academia and industry in the field of test technology. The Award is given to the winner of a two-stage contest with semi-finals held at TTTC-sponsored conferences, symposia, or workshops. The winners of the semi-finals, determined by juries composed of industrial experts, will compete against each other in the finals, held at a major TTTC-sponsored conference or symposium. This major Award is named after Prof. Edward J. McCluskey, a key educator and mentor in the fields of test technology, logic design, and reliability.

Call for Participation 2026

We are happy to announce that in 2026, the Contest will be held in 4 locations:

ATS Doctoral Thesis Award 2025 (for 2026 finals) – local coordinators H. Yotsuyanagi and H. Ichihara
VTS Doctoral Thesis Award 2026 – local coordinator Leticia Bolzani Poehls
ETS Doctoral Thesis Award 2026 – local coordinators Tara Ghasempouri, Stelios Neophytou
LATS Doctoral Thesis Award 2026 – local coordinator Leticia Bolzani Poehls

Because ATS is held after or really close to the International Test Conference (ITC), the Asian semi-final for the TTTC’s E. J. McCluskey Doctoral Thesis Award will be held in 2025

All active doctoral students working on topics actively discussed at ETS, VTS, ATS, LATS, and ITC, and recent graduates who graduated in 2023 or later are eligible for the Award. An individual can only participate in the contest once in a lifetime. Prospective participants are encouraged to participate when they are close to thesis completion and have obtained sufficient results.

Since 2026, TTTC defines a common template for the McCluskey Best Doctoral Thesis Award semifinals. You can download it here. The document should clearly address the following:

• Motivation & Challenges addressed during the PhD
• Scientific and Technological Excellence of the PhD
• Impact of the PhD (on academia with respect to state-of-the-art and/or on industry level)

Students can freely choose the regional (semi-finals) site to submit the summary. Submissions to multiple regional sites are prohibited.

For general inquiries, direct your questions to the Global Coordinators Marcello Traiola (Inria, France) and Riccardo Cantoro (Politecnico di Torino, Italy).

Based on the submitted documents, a set of semi-finalists will be selected for the semi-finals of the contest. Semi-finals could be canceled if the number of submissions is inadequately low, in which case candidates will be invited to take part in another semi-final. Each Semi-Final has its own local rules: please refer to the Local Coordinator for detailed submission instructions. This round usually includes a slot for oral presentation during a dedicated session at the semi-final event. The jury will judge the presentations, and the winner of the semi-final will be announced during the event.

The finalists will be invited to submit a summary of their thesis to be included in the ITC’26 Proceedings and present their work in a dedicated Session. The winner will be determined by a panel of academic and industrial experts. The award is given to the winning student and the thesis advisor.

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Past editions

NAME	AFFILIATION	YEAR	RESULT	THESIS TITLE
Po-Yao Chuang	National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan	2025	Winner	Chiplet Interconnect Test and Repair
Francesco Angione	Politecnico di Torino, Italy	2025	Finalist	System-Level Test techniques for Automotive SoCs
Jaidev Shenoy	IIT Bombay, India	2025	Finalist	Test Data Compaction Techniques with Improved Diagnostic Capabilities and Reduced Tester Time
Corrado De Sio	Politecnico di Torino, Italy	2024		Toward Fault-Tolerant Applications on Reconfigurable Systems-on-Chip
Geancarlo Abich	Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil	2024		Early soft error reliability assessment of convolutional neural networks executing on resource-constrained IoT edge devices
Fernando Fernandes Dos Santos	Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul,  Brazil	2023	Winner	Understanding and Improving GPUs’ Reliability Combining Beam Experiments with Fault Simulation
Anuj Dubey	North Carolina State University, USA	2023	Finalist	A Full-Stack Approach for Side-Channel Secure ML Hardware
Yu Li	The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong	2023	Finalist	Towards Robust Deep Neural Network against Design-time Bugs and Run-time Errors
Prabuddha Chakraborty	University of Florida, USA	2022	Winner	AI-Driven Assurance of Hardware IP against Reverse Engineering Attacks
Sebastian Huhn	Universität Bremen, Germany	2022	Finalist	Next Generation Design For Testability, Debug and Reliability Using Formal Techniques
Supriyo Srimani	School of VLSI Technoogy, IIEST, Shibpur	2022	Finalist	Testing of Analog Circuits using Statistical and Machine Learning Techniques
Lizhou Wu	Delft University of Technology, Netherlands	2021	Winner	Testing STT-MRAM: Manufacturing Defects, Fault Models, and Test Solutions
Mengyun Liu	Duke University, USA	2021	Finalist	Adaptive Methods for Machine Learning-Based Testing of Integrated Circuits and Boards
Foisal Ahmed	Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), Japan	2021	Finalist	Study on High-Accuracy and Low-Cost Recycled FPGA Detection
Mohammad Nasim Imtiaz Khan	The Pennsylvania State University, USA	2020	Winner	Assuring Security and Reliability of Emerging Non-Volatile Memories
Sarah Azimi	Politecnico di Torino, Italy	2020	Finalist	Digital Design Techniques for Dependable High Performance Computing
Rajit Karmakar	Department of E&ECE, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India	2020	Finalist	Hardware IP Protection Using Logic Encryption and Watermarking
Rafael B. Schvittz	Federal University of Pelotas – UFPEL, Brazil	2020	Finalist	Methods for Susceptibility Analysis of Logic Gates in the Presence of Single Event Transients
Tao Chen	Iowa State University, USA	2019	Winner	Thesis title: Built-in Self-Test and Self-Calibration for Analog and Mixed Signal Circuits
Innocent Okwudili	Delft University of Technology, Netherlands	2019	Finalist	Reliability Modeling and Mitigation for Embedded Memories
Francisco E. Rangel-Patiño	The Jesuit University of Guadalajara,  Mexico	2018	Winner	Transmitter and Receiver Equalizers Optimization Methodologies for High-Speed Links in Industrial Computer Platforms Post-Silicon Validation
Muhammad Yasin	New York University Tandon School of Engineering, USA	2018	Finalist	Towards Provably Secure Logic Locking for Hardening Hardware Security
Justyna Zawada	Poznań University of Technology, Poland	2018	Finalist	On New Class of Test Points and Their Applications
Fakir Sharif Hossain	Graduate School of Information Science Department of Computer Science and Engineering Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan	2018	Finalist	Variation-Aware Hardware Trojan Detection through Power Side-channel
Yuming Zhuang	Iowa State University, USA	2017	Winner	Accurate and Robust Spectral Testing with Relaxed Instrumentation Requirements
Surajit Kumar Roy	Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, India	2017	Finalist	Design-for-Test and Test Optimisation for 3D SOCs
Boyang Du	Politecnico di Torino, Italy	2017	Finalist	Fault-tolerant Electronic System Design
Ran Wang	Duke University, USA	2016	Winner	Testing of Interposer-Based 2.5D Integrated Circuits
Eduardo Chielle	Federal University of Rio Grande Do Sul (UFGRS), Brazil	2016	Finalist	Selective Software-Implemented Hardware Fault Tolerance Techniques to Detect Soft Errors in Processors with Reduced Overhead​
Panagiota Papavramidou	Université Grenoble Alpes, TIMA Lab, France	2016	Finalist	Memory repair architectures for high defect densities
Lien Wei-Cheng	Dept. of Electrical Engr., National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan	2016	Finalist	Output bit selection methodology for test response compaction
Fabian Oboril	KIT Karlsruhe, Germany	2015	Winner	Cross-Layer Approaches for an Aging-Aware Design of Nanoscale Microprocess
Sergej Deutsch	Duke University, USA	2015	Finalist	Test and Debug Solutions for 3D-Stacked Integrated Circuits
Li Jiang	The Chinese University of Hong Kong	2015	Finalist	Yield and reliability enhancement for 3D ICs
Samah Saeed	NYU  Polytechnic School of Engineering, USA	2014	Winner	DfT Approaches and Security Challenges in the Scan Design
Luca Cassano	University of Pisa, Italy	2014	Finalist	Analysis and Test of the Effects of Single Event Upsets Affecting the Configuration Memory of SRAM-based FPGAs
Julio César Vázquez Hernández	National Institute for Astrophysics Optics and Electronics (INAOE), Mexico	2014	Finalist	Aging Robust Monitoring and Techniques to Improve Performance on Digital Systems
Louay Abdallah	Université Grenoble Alpes, TIMA Lab, France	2013	Winner	Non-intrusive embedded sensors for RF circuit test
Suraj Sindia	Auburn University, Alabama, AL, USA	2013	Finalist	High sensitivity test signature for unconventional analog circuit test paradigms
Ke Huang	Université Grenoble Alpes, TIMA Lab, France	2013	Finalist	Fault Modelling and Diagnosis for Nanometric Analog/Mixed-Signal/RF Circuits
Nathan Kupp	Yale University, USA	2012	Winner	Integrated Optimization of Semiconductor Manufacturing: A Machine Learning Approach
Darius Szysz	TU Poznan, Poland	2012	Finalist	Low power test application with selective compaction in VLSI designs
Wing-Chiu Tam	Carnegie Mellon University, USA	2011	Winner	Physically-Aware Analysis of Systematic Defects in Integrated Circuits
Urban Ingelsson	University of Southampton, UK	2011	Finalist	Investigations into Voltage and Process Variation-Aware Manufacturing Test
Guihai Yan	ICT Bejing, China	2011	Finalist	Online Timing Variation Tolerance for Digital Integrated Circuits