Electrical and computer engineering alumni Athira Varma Jayakumar receives VCU Alumni’s 10 Under 10 award
VCU Alumni’s 10 Under 10 award recognizes the noteworthy and distinctive achievements made by alumni who earned their first VCU degree (undergraduate, graduate or professional) within the past 10 years. Athira Varma Jayakumar (M.S.’20), a senior software engineer at DISTek Integration Inc., is an innovative leader in autonomous vehicles and safety-critical technologies that are advancing the future of mining and heavy equipment automation.
She has held leading roles at DISTek Integration, Aptiv and Virginia Commonwealth University, driving projects that span autonomous mining trucks, advanced vehicle diagnostics, nuclear safety systems and automotive body control units — all unified by her commitment to advancing safety and reliability in high-stakes environments.
At VCU, Jayakumar, who earned her degree in electrical and computer engineering, co-developed the SymPLe architecture, a groundbreaking framework that modernizes nuclear instrumentation and control systems. This project, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute, introduced novel verification workflows and fault injection methods that have been recognized with patents and global adoption. She also pioneered property-based fault injection techniques that transformed safety validation, dramatically reducing the time to certify critical systems.
Beyond the research lab, her work includes designing and testing next-generation autonomous mining trucks, where she played a critical role in implementing new verification methods, hardware-in-the-loop systems and advanced fault-handling algorithms now deployed in commercial vehicles.
Jayakumar has authored articles in influential technical publications and shares her expertise globally as a judge for the Globee Awards, Business Intelligence Group Awards, Brandon Hall Group Awards and Global Recognition Awards. She also serves on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Science and Research and the Journal of Recent Trends in Computer Science and Engineering, where she is a reviewer and adviser.
Previously, she served as a Global Talent Fellow with the Open Avenues Foundation, mentoring underrepresented students in model-based engineering, guiding impactful projects that connected academic learning to real-world applications.
Jayakumar credits her time at VCU with shaping her passion for solving complex, real-world challenges through research and innovation. Her journey highlights how technical excellence, leadership and service can leave a lasting impact on both industry and community.
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Categories Alumni, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Graduate Student Stories, Student Stories