Tirthak Patel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Rice University and the Director of Positive Technology Lab, conducting systems-level research at the intersection of quantum computing and high-performance computing (HPC). His research explores the trade-offs among factors affecting reliability, performance, and energy efficiency, in recognition of which he has received the ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship and the NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship (CGS D-3).

His work has also been nominated for the best paper award at several highly-selective conferences, including Supercomputing (SC) and ICCAD. The tools, datasets, and methodologies from his work are largely open-sourced, as an important facet of his work is to make scientific research accessible. Prior to joining Rice University, he received his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Northeastern University.