Past DAC General Chair and Technology Marketing Executive honored for her contributions to the EDA industry

LOUISVILLE, Colo. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — April 24, 2018 — Anne Cirkel, senior director technology marketing at  Mentor, a Siemens business, has been selected as the 2018 recipient of the Marie R. Pistilli Women in Electronic Design Award, a prestigious annual honor that recognizes individuals who have visibly helped to advance women in electronic design. The award is named for the late Marie R. Pistilli, former organizer of DAC, who placed a high value on equality, diversity, and acceptance.

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Anne Cirkel has been a significant participant in the worldwide electronic design community. In 2015, Anne served as general chair of the 52^nd Design Automation Conference (DAC), capping more than a decade of contributing to the conference and serving on various DAC committees. In appreciation of her dedication, she was awarded the IEEE EDA Outstanding Service Award. She represented the Electronics Systems Design Alliance for more than 10 years on the DATE executive committees. In recognition of this commitment, she was named Design Automation & Test in Europe fellow and was recognized at DATE 2015 for “Outstanding Performance Servicing DATE.” In addition, Anne has served on the program committee of Embedded World. In her role at Mentor she leads the corporate technology marketing team. As a champion for diversity, Anne sees it as her mission to help promote gender neutrality in hiring decisions.

“Anne’s tenure as the general chair of the 52^nd DAC was inspiring for everyone in our industry,” said OneSpin’s McKenzie Ross, chair of the Worldwide Women in Electronic Design (WWED) committee for the 55^th DAC. “Anne was the first marketing executive to chair the conference in its half-century history. She energetically evangelized DAC by blogging weekly for the entire year leading up to the conference—which was one of the best attended in the past several years—growing it by over 18% in two years. On behalf of the DAC Executive Committee, our WWED committee members, and everyone in the EDA community, I congratulate Anne on this well-deserved achievement.”

In response to the award, Dr. Wally Rhines, CEO and President of Mentor, a Siemens Business, said, “I’m delighted that Anne’s contributions to our industry are being honored with this prestigious award. She has been a tireless advocate within Mentor for the design automation community and its flagship conference. As one of our most senior female executives, she is a superb role model for the leadership generations to come.”

The Marie R. Pistilli Women in Electronic Design Award will be presented to Anne Cirkel during the 55^th DAC General Session Awards presentation on Monday, June 25, 2018 at Moscone West, San Francisco, CA.

More About Anne Cirkel

Prior to joining Mentor Anne held marketing management positions at Analogy, Viewlogic, and Berner & Mattner. Anne holds a Master’s degree in Economics and Business Administration with an undergraduate in Metallurgy from RWTH Aachen, in Germany.

About the Marie R. Pistilli Women in Electronic Design Award

Women have made important contributions and strides in the semiconductor industry for over 20 years. To recognize those who have dedicated time and effort toward these achievements, the Design Automation Conference (DAC) Executive Committee presents an annual award to honor an individual who has made significant contributions to help women advance in the field of EDA technology. The award is named for DAC’s former organizer, the late  Marie Pistilli, who worked hard to further the advancement of women in engineering. Marie passed away in November 2015, but her memory and her legacy live on through her namesake award.

For a list of previous recipients of the award and to obtain details about how to nominate a candidate for 2018, please visit  https://dac.com/content/women-electronic-design.

About DAC

The Design Automation Conference (DAC) is recognized as the premier event for the design of electronic circuits and systems, and for electronic design automation (EDA) and silicon solutions. A diverse worldwide community representing more than 1,000 organizations attends each year, represented by system designers and architects, logic and circuit designers, validation engineers, CAD managers, senior managers and executives to researchers and academicians from leading universities. Close to 60 technical sessions selected by a committee of electronic design experts offer information on recent developments and trends, management practices and new products, methodologies and technologies. A highlight of DAC is its exhibition and suite area with approximately 200 of the leading and emerging EDA, silicon, intellectual property (IP) and design services providers. The conference is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Design Automation (ACM SIGDA), the Electronic Systems Design Alliance (ESDA), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer’s Council on Electronic Design Automation (IEEE CEDA).

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