Max Willsey

Max Willsey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on enhancing program optimization through techniques from programming languages, databases, and systems. He leads the development of tools like egg and egglog, which leverage e-graphs for equality saturation to build robust compiler optimizers.

• Education: PhD from University of Washington (2021), BS from Carnegie Mellon University (2016)
• Current Teaching: CS 164 (Programming Languages and Compilers), CS 265 (Compiler Optimization), CS 294-260 (Declarative Program Analysis and Optimization)

Research Interests center on equality saturation, e-graphs, Datalog, and their applications in program synthesis, compiler design, and database theory. His work bridges formal methods with practical systems, particularly in hybrid molecular-electronic computing.

Notable Scientific Awards:

• SIGMOD Record Research Highlight (2024)
• MIT PL Review Selection (2024)
• Distinguished Paper Awards at OOPSLA (2021) and POPL (2021)
• Invited Talks at ICCAD (2019) and Biochips Summer School (2019)
• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Honorable Mention (2018)

As founder of the EGRAPHS Community, he organizes workshops, forums, and seminars for e-graphs researchers. His publications demonstrate a synthesis of compiler optimization, database theory, and molecular computing, with a focus on unifying disparate programming paradigms.