Forrest Sheng Bao

Forrest Sheng Bao is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Iowa State University (ranked 63rd in U.S. CS departments). His research focuses on AI, NLP, EDA, and medical data analytics. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science (with Electrical Engineering minor) from Texas Tech University (2012), followed by a postdoc at Stony Brook University. Previously, he served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Akron (2013–2017). His work is funded by NSF, FAA, AFRL, Microsoft, and others, with media coverage in MIT Technology Review and Lancet Neurology.

• Education:
• Ph.D., Computer Science (minor in Electrical Engineering), Texas Tech University, 2012
• Postdoc, Stony Brook University (2012–2013)
• Research Interests: AI/ML, NLP (NLG metrics, review analysis), EDA (circuit routing, HDLs), medical signal/image processing (EEG/MRI).

His publications span top conferences like ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, DAC, and DATE, with notable work in EDA using reinforcement learning and NLP metrics. He advises students on NLP and EDA projects, co-founding startups Funix.io and Codepod.io. His lab focuses on applying ML to PCB/IC design and biomedical applications.

• Awards: Best Paper Award at HPCC 2019, NSF grants totaling $462k.
• Teaching: Courses in NLP, Machine Learning, and Python. Actively mentors students through research and TA/RA opportunities.

He engages in entrepreneurship (AI and hardware startups) and maintains active GitHub repositories for educational projects like PyEEG and Mercury.