Professor Ihab Ilyas is a leading figure in data management and machine learning at the Cheriton School of Computer Science , University of Waterloo , where he holds the Thomson Reuters Research Chair in Data Quality . He is currently on leave from the university, serving as a Distinguished Engineer, Proactive Intelligence at Apple Inc . His research focuses on data cleaning , large-scale data integration , knowledge graphs , and machine learning applications in data quality . He has pioneered systems like HoloClean and Saga , with commercial impacts through co-founded startups Inductiv (acquired by Apple) and Tamr . PhD in Computer Science from Purdue University Co-founder of Inductiv (acquired by Apple) Co-founder of Tamr Research Interests include: Probabilistic and uncertain data management Machine learning for data quality and enrichment Big data systems and information extraction Knowledge graph construction and optimization Scientific Awards and Recognitions include: Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2024) C.C. Gotlieb Computer Award (2024) IEEE Fellow (2021) ACM Fellow (2020) Cheriton Faculty Fellowship (2013-2016) Ontario Early Researcher Award
David Mazières is a Professor at Stanford University , affiliated with the School of Engineering and the Department of Computer Science . He serves as a software engineer at the Stellar Development Foundation . His work bridges academic research and industry applications in distributed systems and security. University: Stanford University Academic Rank: Professor Email: dm@scs.stanford.edu Research Interests: David Mazières' research focuses on distributed systems , cryptocurrencies , and computer security . Key areas include consensus protocols (e.g., Stellar ), low-latency scheduling ( Syrup , Shinjuku ), and cryptographic techniques for privacy and security ( SafetyPin , CCFI ). Key Achievements: His notable works include: TCP-ENO (RFC 8547) for secure transport protocols Stellar Consensus Protocol for decentralized finance SOSP 1999 Best Paper for 'Separating key management from file system security' Teaching Contributions: He has taught core and advanced courses at Stanford since 2005, including CS212 (Operating Systems) , CS240h (Functional Systems in Haskell) , and CS251 (Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technologies) . Previously taught courses at NYU (2001-2005).
Roberto Martin-Martin is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, where he leads the Robot Interactive Intelligence (RobIN) Lab. His research bridges robotics, computer vision, and machine learning to enable robots to operate autonomously in human-centric environments like homes and offices. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Stanford Vision and Learning Lab working with Fei-Fei Li and Silvio Savarese, and an AI Researcher at Salesforce AI. Education: Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Robotics from Technische Universität Berlin (TUB), advised by Professor Oliver Brock B.Sc. from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid Dr. Martin-Martin's research focuses on developing AI algorithms that combine reinforcement learning and imitation learning with advanced planning and control to address core challenges in robot perception. His work spans mobile and whole-body manipulation, dexterous and contact-rich interactions, and long-horizon tasks in unstructured environments. He takes inspiration from human cognition through psychology and cognitive science to develop solutions for skills ranging from simple pick-and-place operations to complex tasks like cooking and furniture assembly. His recent publications demonstrate a strong trend toward enabling robots to learn from human demonstrations, particularly through video, and to safely adapt these demonstrations to their own morphology. There's significant emphasis on mobile manipulation, bimanual tasks, and developing hardware that supports robust robot learning through trial and error. His work shows increasing integration of large language models and vision-language models to enhance robot understanding and task execution. Scientific Awards: RSS Pioneer (2020) Winner of Amazon Picking Challenge (2015) RSS Best Systems Paper Award (2016) ICRA Best Paper Award IROS Best Mechanism Award Amazon Faculty Award AAAI Young Faculty IJCAI Early Faculty Nominated for Best Paper at IROS (2014, 2017) Dr. Martin-Martin advises PhD students including Arpit Bahety, who is working on mobile manipulation and learning. He serves as Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Mobile Manipulation and is a co-founder of QueerInRobotics. His research is supported by industry partnerships and academic funding sources that enable his lab to develop both hardware and software innovations in robotics. He directs the Robot Interactive Intelligence (RobIN) Lab at UT Austin, which takes a holistic approach to robot intelligence, developing both the hardware (like the BaRiFlex gripper) and software frameworks necessary for robots to learn from interaction. The lab's research addresses the full pipeline from perception to action, with particular emphasis on learning from human demonstrations, safe exploration, and adapting to novel objects and environments.
Rachit Agarwal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University, with research focusing on systems, networking, and theoretical problems arising in practical systems. He leads a research group working on resource disaggregation, host architecture, secure cloud storage, and datacenter design. PhD in Computer Science, Cornell University Undergraduate, IIT Kanpur His research spans three major directions: Resource Disaggregation (with $3M NSF and Google awards), Host Architecture (exploring terabit interconnects), and PANCAKE (secure oblivious cloud storage with $1M NSF award). He also contributed to foundational work in Near-optimal Datacenter Design and Data Plane Monitoring . Awards include the Sloan Fellowship, NSF CAREER, IRTF Applied Networking Prize, and multiple best paper awards. His recent publications focus on host network architecture, congestion control, oblivious data access mechanisms, and secure cloud storage systems. He has advised multiple Ph.D. and postdoctoral researchers who now hold faculty positions at leading institutions. Sloan Research Fellowship NSF CAREER award Kavli Fellowship IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize SIGCOMM Best Student Paper Award Usenix Security Distinguished Paper Award Tau Beta Pi Professor of the Year 2025 Rachit has advised numerous students including current Cornell advisees like Midhul Vuppalapati, Shreyas Kharbanda, and Omar Eqbal. Former advisees include Saksham Agarwal (UIUC), Qizhe Cai (UVA), and Mina Tahmasbi Arashloo (University of Waterloo). His research is supported by large NSF grants and industry awards, with deployments in real-world systems and open-source contributions.
Peter Bühlmann is a Professor at ETH Zürich within the Seminar für Statistik , focusing on high-dimensional statistics, causal inference, and machine learning. His work bridges theoretical advancements with practical software implementations in R packages like pcalg , mboost , and glmmlasso , impacting fields such as genomics, proteomics, and intensive care analytics. Key Contributions : Causal structure learning, stability selection, anchor regression, and deconfounding. Software : Developed widely used R packages for statistical modeling and causal inference. Teaching : Courses on high-dimensional statistics at ETH Zürich and international institutions. Research Trends : Recent articles emphasize causal robustness, domain adaptation, and applications in medicine. His work addresses challenges in heterogeneous data, missing values, and covariate shifts using methods like spectral deconfounding and residual prediction tests. Scientific Recognition : Co-author of a paper designated as a New Hot Paper (Meinshausen and Bühlmann, 2006) by Essential Science Indicators, indicating significant impact in high-dimensional multiple testing.
Richard M. Murray is the Thomas E. and Doris Everhart Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems and Bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He holds a B.S. from Caltech (1985), M.S. from UC Berkeley (1988), and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (1990). He has served in academic roles from Assistant Professor (1991–1997) to his current endowed professorship. He chaired the Engineering and Applied Science division (2000–2005) and Biology and Biological Engineering (2020–2024). His research focuses on feedback control in biological and autonomous systems, synthetic cells, and networked control systems. Collaborators include experts in robotics, synthetic biology, and systems biology. Key awards include the IEEE Control Systems Award and election to the National Academy of Engineering. His educational contributions span courses on control systems, robotics, and bioengineering. Current research projects include the Developer Cell initiative (Sloan Foundation), layered testing for autonomous systems (AFOSR), and microbiome-based environmental solutions (CHARMME, ARO). He advises numerous graduate students and postdocs, with notable alumni in academia and industry. Labs include facilities in Keck and Steele laboratories at Caltech. His work bridges control theory, synthetic biology, and autonomous systems to address societal challenges like environmental monitoring and safe autonomy.
Asaf Cidon is an Associate Professor at Columbia University, jointly affiliated with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and a member of the Data Science Institute. His research focuses on software systems , storage , large-scale machine learning , and cybersecurity . Stanford University - PhD in Electrical Engineering Stanford University - MS in Electrical Engineering Technion - BS in Computer and Software Engineering His work in distributed storage systems has been commercialized by companies such as Facebook, Tibco, and Rubrik. He has led projects like Sentinel and Forensics during his industry career. Recent publications highlight advancements in software-based radiation protection (ASPLOS'26), PCIe pooling with CXL (HotOS'25), and AI phishing detection (IMC'25). These reflect his expertise in system architecture , security , and networking . Scientific recognitions include best paper awards at OSDI, Usenix Security, CIDR, and ATC, along with NSF CAREER and ARO Young Investigator Awards . His papers Cookie Monster (SOSP'24) and Chablis (CIDR'24) received notable accolades. He has mentored numerous PhD and Master's students , including Edward Guo, Harry Wang, and Teng Jiang, many of whom now hold roles at Google, Meta, Amazon, and academic institutions. His lab at Columbia is actively recruiting CS and EE PhD students. Prior to Columbia, he founded and led the startup Sookasa to acquisition and served as Senior Vice President of Email Protection at Barracuda Networks , managing a $200M business with 100 engineers.
Trevor Campbell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver. He holds a Ph.D. in Machine Learning and Statistics from MIT and a B.A.Sc. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Toronto. His research focuses on automated, scalable Bayesian inference algorithms, Bayesian nonparametrics, and streaming data analysis. Campbell is a core contributor to probabilistic programming tools like Pigeons.jl and has developed influential methods for coreset-based Bayesian inference. Education : Ph.D. in Machine Learning and Statistics (2016), MIT M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics (2013), MIT B.A.Sc. in Aerospace Engineering (2011), University of Toronto Research Interests : His work emphasizes scalable Bayesian computation, including variational inference, MCMC optimization, and coresets. He develops algorithms that balance statistical accuracy with computational efficiency, particularly for large-scale datasets. His recent work explores adaptive samplers (e.g., AutoStep, autoMALA) and theoretical guarantees for coreset methods. Applications span astrophysics, materials science, and network analysis. Awards & Grants : NSERC Discovery Grant (2025) Blackwell-Rosenbluth Award (2021) PIMS Early Career Award (2023) Google Perception Academic Funding (2020) Advising & Labs : He supervises a team of PhD and M.Sc. students at UBC, focusing on Bayesian methodology and computational tools. His lab collaborates with institutions like SFU and MIT on projects involving distributed sampling and probabilistic modeling. He co-organizes workshops on Bayesian computation and serves on editorial boards for Bayesian Analysis and TMLR.
Hyesoon Kim is a Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology , affiliated with the College of Computing and leading the HPArch research group . She co-directs the Center for Research into Novel Computing Hierarchies (CRNCH) . Her research focuses on Computer Architecture , GPU , Compilers and Runtime Systems , and Hardware Security , particularly for heterogeneous systems. Contact : hyesoon@cc.gatech.edu Location : 266 Ferst Drive, KACB 2344, Atlanta, GA Research Trends Her recent work spans RISC-V extensions for security, CUDA optimization on softcore GPUs, memory safety techniques, and energy-efficient deep learning architectures. Articles emphasize heterogeneous computing , GPU performance scaling, and IoT -oriented neural network methods. Open Source Projects She leads development of Macsim (heterogeneous architecture simulator) and Vortex (open-source GPU platform).
Dr. Jimeng Sun is a Health Innovation Professor at the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science and Carle Illinois College of Medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Co-founder of Keiji AI , he leads groundbreaking research at the intersection of artificial intelligence and healthcare, actively deploying clinical AI systems and developing frameworks like PyHealth and Therapeutics Data Commons . His research spans four major areas: Clinical AI Systems : Developing interpretable models (e.g., RETAIN) for patient similarity, temporal event prediction, medication recommendation, and clinical outcome forecasting Drug Discovery : Creating molecular optimization frameworks, drug-target interaction models, and AI-driven platforms Clinical Trials : Pioneering patient-trial matching, outcome prediction, and optimization frameworks using deep learning and graph neural networks Biosignal Analysis : Advancing sleep staging, seizure classification, and automated EEG/Cardiac monitoring systems With over 500 top-tier publications (including in Nature , NEJM AI , and leading AI conferences) and an h-index of 99, his work has been recognized with the Top 100 AI Leaders in Drug Discovery and Advanced Healthcare award. He maintains active collaborations with institutions like Massachusetts General Hospital , Medidata Solutions , and OSF Healthcare . His recent publications reveal a strong focus on: Reinforcement learning applications in medical data analysis Large language model adaptation for clinical tasks Knowledge graph integration with AI systems Synthetic data generation for healthcare Multi-modal learning in clinical contexts Explainable AI for medical applications Dr. Sun's lab ( Sunlab ) emphasizes practical impact over theoretical work, actively collaborating with hospitals and healthtech companies. He welcomes contributions from clinicians, researchers, and industry partners through initiatives like his AI for Health webinar series .
Daniel W. Bliss is a Professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University and Director of ASU's Center for Wireless Information Systems and Computational Architectures (WISCA). With over $50 million in research funding as principal investigator from organizations including DARPA, ONR, Google, and Airbus, his work bridges theoretical foundations with practical implementations across multiple domains of wireless systems. Dr. Bliss received his educational foundation with a B.S.E.E. from Arizona State University (1989), followed by M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from the University of California-San Diego (1995, 1997). His academic journey includes significant industry experience at General Dynamics (1989-1993) and MIT Lincoln Laboratory (1997-2012) before joining ASU. His research program focuses on advanced wireless systems spanning radar, communications, precision positioning, computational architectures, and medical monitoring applications. Bliss employs information theory, estimation theory, and signal processing to develop novel system concepts with disruptive capabilities. Current research emphasizes RF convergence, integrated sensing and communications, and anticipatory medical analytics using wireless technologies, with particular focus on extracting physiological data from radar signals. Analysis of recent publications reveals a strong trend toward integrated sensing and communications systems, particularly utilizing mmWave and radar technologies for medical monitoring applications. His work increasingly bridges traditional communications and radar domains while expanding into physiological monitoring, demonstrating a clear trajectory toward convergence of wireless technologies for healthcare applications and remote vital sign detection. Dr. Bliss has received significant recognition for his contributions: Fellow of the IEEE (2015) 2021 IEEE Warren D. White Award for Excellence in Radar Engineering 2016-2017 Top 5% Teaching Award at ASU 2017 ASU Fulton Engineering Exemplar Faculty As a dedicated mentor, Dr. Bliss has supervised numerous graduate students through successful dissertation and thesis defenses across both PhD and Master's programs. His research portfolio includes substantial funding from diverse sources with over $50 million secured as principal investigator. Current projects include the $17M DARPA DASH project focused on advanced software-reconfigurable heterogeneous SoCs for next-generation RF systems, and multiple initiatives in contactless vital sign monitoring using radar technologies. Dr. Bliss leads the BLISS Lab and serves as director of WISCA, fostering interdisciplinary research in wireless systems. His team includes researchers working on distributed coherent systems, MIMO radar, RF convergence, and medical monitoring applications, with recent successes including the Making Waves team that tied for first place in the Air Force Spark Tank challenge. He has founded two startup companies: DASH Tech Integrated Circuits Company and the Big Little Sensor Company, focusing on high-performance embedded processing and small-scale radar physiological monitoring, respectively.
Tushar Krishna is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, with a courtesy appointment in the School of Computer Science. He earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2014, an MSE in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 2009, and a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi in 2007. His research spans computer architecture, interconnection networks, networks-on-chip (NoC), and AI/ML accelerator systems, with a focus on optimizing data movement in modern computing platforms. His work is funded by NSF, DARPA, IARPA, SRC, Department of Energy, Intel, Google, Meta, Qualcomm, and TSMC. His papers have been cited over 17,000 times, with three receiving IEEE Micro's Top Picks recognition, one earning an honorable mention, and four winning best paper awards. Dr. Krishna leads the Synergy Lab at Georgia Tech and has developed several influential tools including ASTRA-sim for distributed AI/ML training, MAESTRO and SCALE-sim for accelerator design space exploration, and Garnet2.0 for NoC simulation. His recent work focuses on large language model acceleration, distributed training systems, and neuro-symbolic AI architectures. He has received numerous teaching and research awards including induction into the HPCA Hall of Fame (2022), the Class of 1940 Teaching Effectiveness Award (2018), and the Roger P. Webb Outstanding Mid-career Faculty Award (2024). HPCA Hall of Fame Inductee (2022) Roger P. Webb Outstanding Mid-career Faculty Award (2024) Richard M. Bass/Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Junior Teacher Award (2023) Roger P. Webb Outstanding Junior Faculty Award (2021) Class of 1940 Course Survey Teaching Effectiveness Award (2018) Dr. Krishna currently serves as Associate Director for the Center for Research into Novel Computing Hierarchies (CRNCH) and co-chair of the Chakra Execution Traces and Benchmarks Working Group. He has held the ON Semiconductor (Endowed) Junior Professorship at Georgia Tech (2019-2021) and has been a visiting professor at MIT EECS, Harvard University CS, and a researcher at Intel's VSSAD group.
Minseok Ryu is an Assistant Professor at the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, Arizona State University (ASU). He holds a Ph.D. in Industrial & Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan (2020). Prior to ASU, he was a postdoctoral appointee at Argonne National Laboratory’s Mathematics and Computer Science Division. His research focuses on optimization methodologies for decentralized and stochastic decision-making distributed algorithms for machine learning and operations research applications in healthcare systems and energy grids Teaching responsibilities include courses on applied deterministic operations research (IEE 574), optimization (IEE 622), and research practicums (IEE 792). His work emphasizes computational challenges in decision-making under uncertainty, with recent projects addressing nurse staffing optimization, federated learning frameworks (e.g., APPFL/APPFLX), and resilient power grid systems. He has no recorded academic awards but actively contributes to open-source software and cross-disciplinary research collaborations. Research interests bridge theory and practice, targeting social goods through optimization techniques like distributionally robust optimization, federated learning, and heuristic algorithms for energy and healthcare systems.
Philip S. Yu is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago and holds the Wexler Chair in Information Technology. Previously, he led the Software Tools and Techniques department at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Education: B.S. in Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Stanford University M.B.A., New York University His research spans data mining , big data , social networks , privacy-preserving data publishing , graph/network mining , recommender systems , and deep learning . He has authored over 970 papers with 74,500+ citations and an H-index of 127. Recent work focuses on heterogeneous graph representation, quantum walks in network analysis, and federated unlearning. Scientific Honors: ACM SIGKDD 2016 Innovation Award IEEE Computer Society 2013 Technical Achievement Award IEEE ICDM 2003 Research Contributions Award IEEE Region 1 Award (1999) UIC Research of the Year (2013) IBM Master Inventor with 300+ patents AI 2000 Most Influential Scholar Honorable Mentions (2024-2025) He served as Editor-in-Chief for ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data and IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering , and on steering committees for ACM KDD and IEEE Data Mining. His work bridges theoretical advances in graph neural networks , deep learning , and privacy-preserving systems with applications in healthcare, social media, and enterprise analytics.
Kenneth P. Birman is the N. Rama Rao Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University, where he has had a long and impactful career in distributed systems, cloud computing, and AI/ML infrastructure. He is known for foundational contributions to reliable and scalable distributed systems, and for leading high-impact projects such as Cascade, Vortex, and Derecho. He is also the author of a widely used textbook on reliable distributed systems and has founded multiple companies based on his research. Education: Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley M.S. in Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley B.A. in Computer Science, Columbia University Research Interests: Professor Birman's research focuses on building reliable, secure, and scalable distributed systems . His current emphasis is on AI and ML infrastructure , particularly in reducing latency and improving performance through hardware acceleration, RDMA-based communication, and edge computing. He explores how to eliminate data movement bottlenecks in AI pipelines and how to support real-time, mission-critical applications in domains like healthcare, smart grids, and industrial IoT. His work spans systems programming, cloud computing, fault tolerance, and formal verification . He has designed systems that have been deployed in high-stakes environments such as the New York Stock Exchange, the Swiss Exchange, and the French Air Traffic Control system. Scientific Awards: ACM Fellow (1999) IEEE Fellow (2014) IEEE Tsutomu Kanai Award for innovations in distributed computing Teaching and Mentorship: Professor Birman teaches two courses in the fall semester: CS4414: Systems Programming and CS5416: Cloud and ML Systems Programming . He has advised numerous Ph.D. and M.S. students, including Alicia Yang, Tiancheng Yuan, Yifan Wang, Weijia Song, Edward Tremel, Sagar Jha, Jonathan Behrens, and Mae Milano. He has announced that Fall 2025 will be his last semester teaching, and he is no longer recruiting new students, though he will continue supervising current ones. Labs and Projects: He leads the Derecho Project and the Cascade/Vortex Project , both focused on high-performance distributed systems. These projects are collaborative efforts with students and industry partners, and the software is released under open-source licenses. He also maintains strong ties with Cornell's systems group and collaborates with faculty across CS, ECE, IS, and the Cornell Tech NYC campus.
