Alex Aiken

Alex Aiken is the Alcatel-Lucent Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and serves as the Computer Science Division Director at SLAC. He has been a faculty member at Stanford since 2003, after previously serving as a Professor in the EECS department at UC Berkeley (1993-2003) and as a Research Staff Member at IBM Almaden Research Center (1988-1993).

Dr. Aiken received his Bachelors degree in Computer Science and Music from Bowling Green State University in 1983 and his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1988. He previously served as chair of the Stanford Computer Science Department.

Alex Aiken's research focuses primarily on programming languages, compilers, and parallel computing systems. He is renowned for his work on the Legion programming system for heterogeneous parallel machines, the FlexFlow system for deep learning parallelization, and the development of Moss, a widely-used plagiarism detection system. His research spans both theoretical foundations and practical implementations, with a strong emphasis on translating research into usable software tools. His work has significant applications in high-performance computing, software analysis, and compiler technology.

His recent publications reflect a continued focus on parallel and distributed systems, with increasing attention to the intersection of programming systems and machine learning. The 15 most recent articles demonstrate his leadership in task-based programming models, verification techniques, and the application of AI to programming systems. His work spans from low-level GPU optimizations to high-level language design and verification.

• ACM Fellow
• Recipient of ACM SIGPLAN's Programming Languages Achievement Award
• Phi Beta Kappa's Teaching Award

Professor Aiken has advised numerous Ph.D. students throughout his career, with eight current advisees including Benjamin Driscoll, Qiantan Hong, and Rupanshu Soi. His research group has received substantial funding for projects related to parallel programming systems, compiler technology, and software analysis tools. The group maintains several active open-source projects including Legion, FlexFlow, and Moss.

Aiken leads the Legion research group, which focuses on developing programming models and runtime systems for heterogeneous and distributed parallel machines. The group has made significant contributions to the field of task-based parallelism and has developed several widely-used software systems that bridge the gap between theoretical research and practical implementation.