Saman P. Amarasinghe

Professor Saman P. Amarasinghe is a renowned academic in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, leading the Commit compiler group within CSAIL. His research focuses on high-performance domain-specific languages (DSLs) and compilers, addressing the end of Moore's Law by optimizing software efficiency. He pioneered tools like Halide, Simit, and Taco, which are industry-adopted for image processing and sparse systems. Additionally, he co-founded Determina (acquired by VMware) and is the faculty director of MIT Global Startup Labs, fostering entrepreneurship globally.

Education:

• B.S., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Cornell University (1988)
• M.S., Electrical Engineering, Stanford University (1990)
• Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Stanford University (1997)

Research Interests: High-performance computing, domain-specific languages (DSLs), compilers with machine learning integration, and compiler optimization techniques. His work emphasizes practical applications in image processing, graph analytics, and tensor algebra.

Awards:

• ACM Fellow (2019)

Teaching & Mentorship: Courses include 6.172 (Performance Engineering) and project-based labs. His mentorship supports over 20 startups through Global Startup Labs.

Labs & Projects: Leads the Commit Group and contributes to frameworks like GraphIt and OpenTuner. Collaborates on industry projects such as the Tensor Algebra Compiler (TACO).