Xian-He Sun

Xian-He Sun is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and the Ron Hochsprung Endowed Chair at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech), where he serves as the director of the Scalable Computing Software (SCS) laboratory and the Gnosis Research Center for accelerating data-driven discovery. He previously served as the Department Chair of Computer Science from 2009 to 2014. Dr. Sun is also an IEEE Fellow and was a guest faculty member at Argonne National Laboratory from 1999 to 2020.

Dr. Sun earned his BS in Mathematics from Beijing Normal University in China, followed by MS in Mathematics, MS in Computer Science, and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Michigan State University. His academic journey includes positions as a post-doctoral researcher at Ames National Laboratory, staff scientist at ICASE/NASA Langley Research Center, ASEE fellow at US Navy Research Laboratories, and associate professor at Louisiana State University before joining Illinois Tech in 1999.

Dr. Sun's research focuses on parallel and distributed processing, memory and I/O systems, software systems for Big Data applications, and performance evaluation and optimization. His work addresses fundamental challenges in high-performance computing, particularly the 'memory wall' problem that limits system performance. His research has led to influential models like the memory-bounded speedup model (Sun-Ni's law) and the Concurrent Average Memory Access Time (C-AMAT) model, which are now considered essential tools for solving big data problems. Recent publications show a strong focus on innovative I/O buffering systems, memory architectures, and data access optimization techniques for modern computing environments.

• ACM Karsten Schwan Best Paper Award (2019)
• ACM/IEEE CCGrid best paper award (2021)
• ACM HPDC best paper award (2019)
• IEEE ISPA best paper award (2016)
• ACM SIGSIM best paper award (2015)
• IEEE CS Golden Core Award (2017)
• IEEE Computer Society Meritorious Service Certificate (2016)
• ACM SIG Governing Board Service Award (2014)
• CSE Distinguished Alumni Award from Michigan State University (2022)

Dr. Sun has secured over thirty federally funded research projects totaling more than thirty million dollars since joining Illinois Tech. His current research is supported by multiple NSF grants including a $3 million grant for the Hermes project. He has developed several influential software systems including Hermes, ChronoLog, Coeus, and PortHadoop that address critical challenges in high-performance computing and big data processing. As an educator, he has mentored numerous students who have gone on to successful careers in academia, industry, and national laboratories. During his tenure as Department Chair, he helped elevate Illinois Tech's Computer Science department from unranked to #83 in the USNews rankings.