Ben L. Titzer

Ben L. Titzer is a Researcher at Carnegie Mellon University's Software and Societal Systems Department in the School of Computer Science. He joined CMU in 2022 after 15 years in industry, including pivotal roles at Google and Sun Microsystems Laboratories.

• Education: Ph.D. (2007), M.S. (2004) in Computer Science from UCLA; B.S. (2002) in Computer Science from Purdue University.

His research spans systems programming languages, compilers, virtual machines, and WebAssembly, with a strong focus on software security and embedded systems. He co-founded the WebAssembly project in 2014 and developed the Wizard Engine, a research-focused WebAssembly engine emphasizing simplicity and flexibility for academic experimentation.

Ben's publications highlight innovations in language design (e.g., Virgil), compiler architecture, and memory optimization for resource-constrained environments. His work at Google involved mitigating Spectre vulnerabilities in Chrome's V8 engine, and he taught undergraduate compilers at Australian National University in 2020. Ben maintains active involvement in the Virgil programming language and open-source community.