James Garland

BEng(Hons) MSc

Assistant Lecturer

Carlow Campus

e: james.garland@itcarlow.ie      t: 059 9175442

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8688-9407     ResearchGate  LinkedIn   Mendeley

PhD Candidate and researcher in Machine Learning, with 22 years of industrial experience in software, FPGA & IC Design Engineering with Digital SoC / IP ASIC, FPGA and PCB design and test, training and customer support experience in a variety of different industries. Project manager, team and technical leader. 3 years of External Examiner experience, 10 years of lecturing and research supervision experience. 4 years of research experience whilst completing a PhD.

  • ACADEMC AND RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
  • Publications and outputs
  • Research Supervision
  • Engagement and Collaboration

Academic and Research Experience

Research assistant on a PhD project designing low power embedded hardware for the SeNDT project in Trinity College Dublin.

PhD Research Candidate, researching Micro-architectural Optimisations of Machine Learning Algorithms in FPGAs, ASICs and Embedded Systems for Power, Area Conservation.

Current research interests include Micro-architectural optimisations in hardware and low-level software of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. These optimisations are primarily targeted at reducing power and gate count in FPGA and ASIC devices or increasing performance in embedded low power IoT Edge devices.

Publications and Outputs

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

Garland, J. and Gregg D. (2018) ‘Low Complexity Multiply Accumulate Units for Convolutional Neural Networks with Weight-Sharing’, in ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimisation (TACO), vol. 15, no. 3, August 2018, Article 31, pp. 1-24, doi: 10.1145/3233300

Garland, J. and Gregg D. (2017) ‘Low Complexity Multiply Accumulate Unit for Weight-Sharing Convolutional Neural Networks’, in IEEE Computer Architecture Letters, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 132-135, July-Dec. 1 2017, doi: 10.1109/LCA.2017.2656880

Book Chapters

Anderson, A; Garland, J; Wen, Y; Barabasz, B; Persand, K; Vasudevan, A; Gregg, D. (2019) Chapter 6, ‘Hardware and software performance in deep learning’ in ‘Many-Core Computing: Hardware and Software’, pp: 141-161, ISBN: 978-1-78561-582-5.

Garland, J. and Gregg D. (2017) ‘Low Complexity Multiply Accumulate Unit for Weight-Sharing Convolutional Neural Networks’, ACACES 2017 Poster Abstracts, 2017, pp. 53-56, HiPEAC, the European Network of Excellence on High Performance and Embedded Architecture and Compilation.

Conference Proceedings and Papers

Garland, J. and Gregg D. (2019) ‘Low Complexity Multiply-Accumulate Units for Convolutional Neural Networks with Weight-Sharing’, HiPEAC January 2019, Valencia, Spain.

Garland, J. and Gregg D. (2017) ‘Low Complexity Multiply Accumulate Unit for Weight-Sharing Convolutional Neural Networks’, Poster presentation, HiPEAC ACACES 2017.

Research Supervision

Current Research Students
  • Bovenizer, Christopher (2020-2022), IRC Employment Based Program M.Sc., “Live, On-site Automation of Harvesting Equipment using Artificial Intelligence, Vision and Sensor Systems”, Institute of Technology, Carlow and Tanco Autowrap Limited.
  • Furlong, Ryan (2019-2021), President’s EngCore Research Fellowship M.Sc., “Development platform for Artificial Intelligence at the network edge”.
  • Luke Connolly (2019-2021), President’s EngCore Research Fellowship M.Sc., “UAV obstacle avoidance”, Institute of Technology, Carlow.
Past Research Students

2019, Institute of Technology Carlow

  • Brennan, Colm (2019), M.Sc. in Communications Technology Management, “How can Machine Learning be Applied to Maritime Data Information to Aid Targeted Patrolling by the Irish Naval Service?”

2006-2008, Trinity College Dublin

  • Kantas, Charalampos (2008), M.Sc. in Computer Science (Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing), “Design & Analysis of Power-Efficient Embedded FPGA Sensor Systems”
  • Meehan, Eoin (2006), M.Sc. in Computer Science (Ubiquitous Computing), “Are you looking at me?”
  • Carter, James (2006), M.Sc. in Computer Science (Ubiquitous Computing), “Study of power saving on Mica2 motes”
  • McKnight, Joseph (2006), M.Sc. in Computer Science (Ubiquitous Computing), “Investigating an Integrated Inertial Gesture Recognition System and Vibrotactile Display”
Areas of Interest as a Supervisor include
  • Electronics
  • Embedded Computing
  • Sensor systems
  • ASIC and FPGA design
  • Machine Learning

Engagement and Collaboration

Research Funding

  • 2020-2022, Irish Research Council Employment Based Program.
  • 2019-2021, President’s EngCore Research Fellowship.
  • 2019-2021, President’s EngCore Research Fellowship.
  • 2019: Enterprise Ireland Innovation Voucher: EDR 775 Nmictech Ltd.
  • Worked as a Research Assistant on a Ph.D. research project in Trinity College Dublin, 2003-2004.
  • Sought industrial collaboration in an expression of interest for research proposals for the Microelectronics Circuits Centre Ireland (MCCI) call.