Emery Berger

Emery Berger is a Professor in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He co-leads the PLASMA research lab and holds significant affiliations including Microsoft Research, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya/Barcelona Supercomputing Center, and Amazon Web Services as an Amazon Scholar. His academic journey began with a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin in 2002.

Professor Berger's research spans programming languages, runtime systems, and operating systems, with a particular focus on systems that transparently improve reliability, security, and performance. His work has led to several influential software systems including Hoard (a fast and scalable memory manager), DieHard (an error-avoiding memory manager), and DieHarder (a secure memory manager). He is also the creator and maintainer of CSrankings, a widely used website that quantifies research strength in computer science.

Berger's research has evolved from memory management and reliability systems to incorporate more recent work on programming language tools, Python performance analysis, and AI-assisted development. His current projects include ChatDBG for AI-assisted debugging and CoverUp for automatic high-coverage unit tests, reflecting his adaptation to the changing landscape of software development. The articles demonstrate a clear trajectory from foundational systems work to modern AI-integrated development tools, with consistent emphasis on improving developer productivity and software quality.

• Microsoft Research Fellowship
• NSF CAREER Award
• Lilly Teaching Fellowship
• Most Influential Paper Awards from ASPLOS, OOPSLA, and PLDI
• Five CACM Research Highlights
• ACM Fellow (2019)
• ACM SIGPLAN Distinguished Service Award

Berger has served the academic community extensively, including two terms as an elected member-at-large of the SIGPLAN Executive Committee, a decade as associate editor of the ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, program chair for PLDI 2016, and co-program chair for ASPLOS 2021. He is actively involved in mentoring students and recruiting new talent to his research group, with a particular emphasis on supporting international students. His PLASMA research lab continues to be a hub for innovative systems research, focusing on performance, reliability, and security.