Mayur Naik

Mayur Naik is the Misra Family Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering and Applied Science. He holds office in Room 642B, Amy Gutmann Hall and maintains an active research program focused on the intersection of programming languages and artificial intelligence. Before joining UPenn, he was faculty at Georgia Institute of Technology and a researcher at Intel Labs, Berkeley.

Naik received his PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2008 under Alex Aiken, a Masters from Purdue University in 2003 under Jens Palsberg, and a Bachelors from BITS Pilani in 1999. He grew up in Goa, India.

His primary research interests center around neurosymbolic programming, which combines symbolic reasoning with machine learning to create more accurate, interpretable, and domain-aware AI systems. His group develops language design, learning algorithms, and compiler optimizations in this space, with their most mature effort being the Scallop neurosymbolic programming language and compiler toolchain. He also conducts research in trustworthy AI for healthcare applications and AI-enabled programming tools that improve programmer productivity.

Analysis of his recent publications shows a strong trend toward neurosymbolic programming frameworks (Scallop, TorchQL), LLM-assisted program analysis (IRIS), and applications of these techniques to security, healthcare, and computer vision. His work consistently bridges theoretical foundations with practical implementations, often releasing open-source systems.

• Misra Family Professor (endowed chair, effective July 2024)
• Multiple distinguished paper awards (PLDI 2019, FSE 2015, PLDI 2014)
• Test-of-Time Paper Awards (FSE 2013, FSE 2012, EuroSys 2011)
• His student Elizabeth Dinella won the 2025 ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Dissertation award

Naik has advised numerous PhD students who have gone on to faculty positions at top institutions including Peking University, University of Toronto, Ashoka University, Bryn Mawr College, and Johns Hopkins University. His research is supported by grants from NSF, Google, Amazon, and other industry partners. His lab maintains active collaborations with clinicians and bioinformatics researchers to apply neurosymbolic programming to healthcare problems.

His research group, which includes current PhD students and postdocs, develops practical open-source systems and applies them to diverse domains including computer vision, cybersecurity, medicine, and bioinformatics. The group maintains strong industry connections with Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and other tech companies.