SAFARI Alumni

PhD Alumni

Hasan Hassan, (defended 29 September 2022)
Thesis title: “Improving DRAM Performance, Reliability, and Security by Rigorously Understanding Intrinsic DRAM Operation“
[Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (abs) (pdf)]
[SAFARI Live Seminar Video]
[SAFARI News]

2023 EDAA Outstanding Dissertation Award [SAFARI News]
Left to: Rivos Inc.


Christina Giannoula, (defended 27 September 2022)
Thesis title: “Accelerating Irregular Applications via Efficient Synchronization and Data Access Techniques“, PhD Thesis, National Technical University of Athens
[Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
[SAFARI Live Seminar Video (with Q&A); SAFARI Live Seminar Slides (pptx) (pdf)]

2022 Best Doctoral Thesis Award NTUA [NTUA News] [SAFARI News]
Left to: Postdoc, University of Toronto


Minesh Patel, April 2022 (defended 01 October 2021)
Thesis title: “Enabling Effective Error Mitigation in Modern Memory Chips that Use On-Die Error-Correcting Codes”
[Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
[SAFARI Live Seminar Video]
[SAFARI News]

2022 ETH Doctoral Medal  [SAFARI News]
2022 William C. Carter PhD Dissertation Award in Dependability
(presented at DSN 2022 (Baltimore, MD), 28 June 2022).  [Acceptance Speech Video] [Slides (pptx)(pdf)] [SAFARI News] [The William C. Carter PhD Dissertation Award in Dependability]



Gagandeep Singh, March 2021 (defended 29 March 2021)


Nandita Vijaykumar, December 2019 (defended 11 October 2019)
Thesis title: “Enhancing Programmability, Portability, and Performance with Rich Cross-Layer Abstractions”
[Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
Left to: Assistant Professorship, University of Toronto


Kevin Hsieh, October 2019 (defended 5 September 2019)
Thesis title: “Machine Learning Systems for Highly-Distributed and Rapidly-Growing Data”
[Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
[Video PhD thesis talk]
Left to: Microsoft Research


Justin Meza, May 2019 (defended December 2018).
Thesis title: “Large Scale Studies of Memory, Storage, and Network Failures in a Modern Data Center”
[Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
Left to: Facebook


Mohammed Alser, August 2018 (defended June 2018).
Thesis title: “Accelerating the Understanding of Life’s Code Through Better Algorithms and Hardware Design”
[Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
2018 IEEE Turkey Doctoral Dissertation Award
News items:
Yasser Arafat Award (The Best Palestinian PhD Student in Turkey)
SAFARI News: Mohammed Alser wins IEEE Turkey PhD Dissertation Award


Yixin Luo, May 2018 (defended February 2018).
Thesis title: “Architectural Techniques for Improving NAND Flash Memory Reliability”
[Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
[Video PhD thesis talk]
Left to: Google


Kevin Chang, May 2017 (defended May 2017).
Thesis title: “Understanding and Improving the Latency of DRAM-Based Memory Systems”
[Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
Left to: Facebook


Rachata Ausavarungnirun, May 2017 (defended May 2017).
Thesis title: “Techniques for Shared Resource Management in Systems with Throughput Processors”
[Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
Left to: Assistant Professorship, TGGS, KMUTNB


Gennady Pekhimenko, August 2016 (defended July 2016).
Thesis title: “Practical Data Compression for Modern Memory Hierarchies”
[
Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
Left to: Assistant Professorship, University of Toronto


Vivek Seshadri, May 2016 (defended April 2016).
Thesis title: “Simple DRAM and Virtual Memory Abstractions to Enable Highly Efficient Memory Subsystems”
[
Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
[Video PhD thesis talk]
Left to: Microsoft


Donghyuk Lee, May 2016 (defended December 2015).
Thesis title: “Reducing DRAM Latency at Low Cost by Exploiting Heterogeneity”
[
Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
Left to: NVIDIA


Yoongu Kim, August 2015 (defended May 2015).
Thesis title: “Architectural Techniques to Enhance DRAM Scaling”
[Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
Left to: Google


Lavanya Subramanian, August 2015 (defended April 2015).
Thesis title: “Providing High and Controllable Performance in Multicore Systems Through Shared Resource Management”
[
Slides (pptx) (pdf)]
[Thesis arXiv (pdf)]
Left to:  Intel, Facebook


PostDocs, Senior Researchers and Lecturers Alumni
Juan Gómez Luna, Dr., Senior Researcher and Lecturer (Aug 2017 – Oct 2023), left to: NVIDIA.

Mohammed Alser, Dr., Senior Researcher and Lecturer (Jan 2019 – August 2023)

Gagandeep Singh, Dr., (Jan 2020 – Feb 2023) left to: AMD. 

Jisung Park, Dr. (Sept 2019 – August 2022), left to: Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea, Assistant Professor.

Nour Almadhoun Alserr, Dr. (Sept 2020 – Aug 2022)

Lois Orosa, Dr. (Jan 2019- Feb 2022), left to: Supercomputing Center of Galicia, CESGA, Managing Director

Jawad Haj-Yahya, Dr.  (2019-2021), left to: Huawei, Zurich Research Center

Arash Tavakkol, Dr. (2016 – 2018), left to: Fortum

Saugata Ghose, Dr. (2014-2016, 2016-2021 as faculty member), left to: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Assistant Professor.

Rachata Ausavarungnirun, Dr. (2017-2019), left to: Sirindhorn International Thai-German Graduate School (TGGS), Assistant Professor.

Yixin Luo, Dr. (March 2018 to June 2018), left to: Google

Kevin Chang, Dr. (May 2017-January 2018), left to: Facebook

Samira Khan, Dr. (2012-2015), left to: University of Virginia, Assistant Professor.


Masters Alumni

Aditya Manglik (Sept 2021 – Aug 2023), Thesis (completing at Columbia University)

Haocong Luo (Spring 2023), Co-advisor: Giray Yaglikci, Thesis: Characterizing a New Read-Disturb Vulnerability in Modern DDR4 DRAM Chips. Left to: PhD, SAFARI Research Group

Luca Blum (Spring 2023), Co-advisor:  Mohammed Alser, Thesis: Catalyzing deep learning based metagenomic profiling.

Alain Kohli (Spring 2023), Co-advisor: Geraldo F. Oliveira, Thesis: Framework for Easy Use of the UPMEM Processing-in-Memory Platform using Parallel Patterns.

Julien Eudine (Fall 2022), Co-advisors: Mohammed Alser, Gagandeep Singh, Thesis: New Methods and Architectures for Accelerating Read Mapping on Modern CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs.

João Dinis Ferreira (Spri 2023), Co-advisor: Juan Gómez Luna, Thesis: Performance and Energy Modelling of a Real-World Processing-in-Memory Architecture.  Left to:

Roknoddin Azizibarzoki (Spring 2022), Thesis: Exploring Processing-in-Storage using Inherent Computation Capability of NAND Flash Memory.  Left to: Oracle.

Emanuele Esposito (Spring 2021), Co-advisor: Juan Gomez, Thesis: PIM Areas: Memory allocation and alignment for Processing-in-Memory.

Joël Lindegger (Fall 2021), Co-advisors: Damla Senol Cali, Mohammed Alser, Juan Gómez Luna, Thesis: GenASM-GPU: A Practical and Efficient Implementation of GenASM on GPUs.  Left to: PhD student, SAFARI Research Group.

Kosta Stojiljkovic (Spring 2021), Co-advisor: Konstantinos Kanellopoulos, Thesis: Alternative address translation path for frequently accessed pages.

Jan Schäppi (Spring 2021), Co-advisors: Mohammed Alser, Jeremie Kim, Thesis: Reducing reference data for Metagenomic Analysis.

Alain Denzler (Spring 2020), Co-advisor: Juan Gómez Luna, Thesis: A Near-Cache Accelerator for Stencil Computations.  Left to: NVIDIA

Taha Shahroodi (Fall 2020), Co-advisor: Mohammed Alser, Thesis: Investigating the Opportunities for Improving the Accuracy and Efficiency of Metagenomic Profiling.

Nika Mansourighiasi (Fall 2019), Co-advisor: Juan Gómez Luna, Luca Benini, Thesis:  Understanding the Opportunities and Bottlenecks in Near-Data Processing Engines.  Left to: PhD, SAFARI Research Group

Vesna Resende Barros (Fall 2018), Co-advisors: Nezihe Merve Guerel, Thomas Lemmin, Thesis: Spectral analysis of fluorescently labeled amyloid fibrils.

Peter Resutik (Spring 2019), Co-advisors: Thomas Lemmin, Nezihe Merve Gürel, Thesis: Implementation of a nanopore DNA base-caller.

Philipp Gamper (Fall 2017), Co-advisors: Germain Haugou, Fabian Schuik, Thesis: Let’s boot Linux on PULP.


Undergraduate Alumni

Lukas Zink (Fall 2023), Co-advisor: Juan Gómez Luna, Thesis: Towards Throughput-oriented Sparse Matrix Vector Multiplication on a Processing-in-Memory System.
PACT 2023 Student Research Competition, Undergrad Category, First Place
SAFARI News: ACM Student Research Competition at PACT 2023

Jeril Vathalloor (Summer 2023), Co-advisor: Konstantinos Kanellopoulos, Thesis: Enabling Virtual Memory Research.

Hong Chul Nam (Summer 2023), Co-advisor: Konstantinos Kanellopoulos, Thesis: Victima: Drastically Increasing Address Translation Reach by Leveraging Underutilized Cache Resources.

Arvid Gollwitzer (Fall 2023), Co-advisor: Mohammed Alser, Thesis: Heuristic Read Mapping for Metagenomic Analyses.

Steve Rhyner (Fall 2023),  Co-advisor: Ce Zhang, Thesis: Is ML Training on PiM getting real? Towards an Algorithm/Hardware Co-Design.

Georgijs Vilums (Fall 2022), Co-advisor: Geraldo F. Oliveira, Thesis: Easing PIM Programmability with Parallel Patterns: A Case Study with the UPMEM Architecture.

Max Rumpf (Fall 2022), Co-advisor: Mohammed Alser, Thesis: SequenceLab: A Comprehensive Benchmark of Computational Heuristic Methods for Comparing Genomic Sequences.

Roberto Starc (Fall 2020), Co-advisors: Juan Gómez Luna, Geraldo De Oliveira, Thesis: Enabling Processing-in-Memory for General Purpose Architectures.

Julian Büchel (Spring 2020), Co-advisors: Giacomo Indiveri, Sergio Solinas, Thesis: Optimal spike-based signal representation on a neuromorphic chip.

Sven Gregorio (Fall 2019), Co-advisor: Juan Gómez Luna, Mohammed Alser, Thesis: AmbitPlus: a massively parallel DRAM based SIMD accelerator.

Rudolf Loretan (Summer 2019), Co-advisor: Juan Gómez Luna, Thesis: “CRC in Memory”

Tobias Büchli (Fall 2018), Co-advisors: Peter Wolf, Michael Herold-Nadig, Thesis: Embedded Software for Parkinson Wireless Wearable to Record Freezing of Gait and Emit Tactile Stimulation.

Alex Breuss (Fall 2017), Co-advisors: Elisabeth Wilhelm, Robert Riener, Thesis: Sound based localization.


Visiting Guests, Students and Interns

Chetan Kumar Vudadha, (Visiting Researcher,  May 2023 – Feb 2024), Assistant Professor, BITS Pilani (SERB (Science and Engineering Research Board of India) International Research Experience Fellow)

Oğuz Ergin (Visiting Professor, with EFCL, June – Nov 2023), Associate Professor, TOBB University of Economics and Technology

Jude Haris (Visiting PhD Student, Sept – Nov 2023), University of Glasgow

Ionelia Buzatu (Postgraduate Intern, June – Aug 2023)

Ethan Luan (Visiting Bachelor Student, June – Aug 2023), University of Toronto

Filipe Mulonde (Swiss Government Excellence Scholar, Sept 2022 – Aug 2023)

Mohammad/Hashem Haghbayan (Visiting Postdoc, Jan – June 2021), University of Turku, Finland

David Novo (Visiting Scientist, Nov – Dec 2020), CNRS, ADAptive Computing (ADAC) group, Montpellier Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics and Microelectronics (LIRMM)

Neethu Bal Mallya (Academic Guest, May 2019 – April 2020)

Chandan Kumar Jha (Visiting PhD student, July 2019 – Jan 2020), Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar

Ataberk Olgun (Intern, May – Dec 2019), TOBB University

Nisa Bostanci (Intern, May – Dec 2019), TOBB University

Haocong Luo (Intern, BSc student, Mar – Dec 2019), ShanghaiTech University

Christina Giannoula  (Visiting PhD student, Jan – Dec 2019), National Technical University of Athens

Ivan Fernandez-Vega (Visiting PhD student, HiPEAC, April – Nov 2019; Sept – Dec 2021), University of Malaga

Kalliopi Tzimi (Intern Master’s student, Aug – Nov 2019), University of Patras

Soramichi Akiyama, Prof.  (Visiting Professor, Apr – Oct 2019), University of Tokyo

Skanda Koppula  (Fulbright Scholar, 2018-2019), now at: Google DeepMind

Pranjali Jain  (Intern, May – July 2019)

Mohamed Hasan (Intern, D-INFK Summer Research Fellow, June – July 2019), University of Stuttgart

Yusen Li, Prof.  (Visiting Professor, June – July 2019), Nankai University

Seyyedmohammad Sadrosadati (Visiting PhD student, 2017)

Osman Boyaci (Visiting PhD student, 2017), ITU

Fazal Hameed (Visiting PostDoc, 2017), TU Dresden

Yaohua Wang (Visiting PostDoc, 2017), NUDT

Kailin Yang (Intern, 2017), Tsinghua


SAFARI at CMU Alumni
Post-Doc Alumni

Samira Khan, September 2015.
Currently Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia.
[Job Talk Slides (pptx) (pdf)]

Saugata Ghose, May 2017.
Currently Research Faculty at Carnegie Mellon University.

Kevin Chang, August 2017.
Currently at Facebook.

Yixin Luo, August 2018.
Currently at Google.

Rachata Ausavarungnirun, May 2019.
Currently at King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok.


Graduate Student Alumni

Ameya Ambardekar: Intern, M.S. ECE, May 2013.

Chris Craik: M.S. ECE, Aug 2011.
Master’s Report: Investigating the Viability of Bufferless NoCs in Modern Chip Multi-Processor Systems.

Parag Dixit: Intern, M.S. ECE, May 2013

John Greth: Intern, M.S. ECE, May 2015.

Chris Fallin: M.S. ECE, Carnegie Mellon University, May 2011.

Mohammad Fattah: Intern, PhD student at University of Turku, Finland, in progress.

Matthias Grundmann: Intern, PhD student at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, in progress.

Tyler Huberty: Intern, M.S. ECE, Carnegie Mellon University, Jan 2014.

Jamie Jablin: Intern, Ph.D. student, Brown University, Sep 2013.

Ben Jaiyen: M.S. ECE, Jan 2013.

Abhijith Kashyap: M.S. ECE, May 2016.

Jamie Liu: M.S. ECE, Jan 2013.

Youyou Lu: Intern, Ph.D. student, Tsinghua University, in progress.

Justin Meza: M.S. ECE, May 2014.

Jinglei Ren: Intern, Ph.D. student, Tsinghua University, in progress.

Eddie Sears: Masters student, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University.

Hui Wang: Intern, Ph.D. student. Beihang University, in progress.

Ying Wang: Intern, Ph.D. student, Chinese Academy of Science, in progress.

Gulay Yalcin: Intern, Ph.D., UPC. Student researcher at Barcelona Supercomputing Center.

Samihan Yedkar: Intern, M.S. ECE, Jan 2013.

Hanbin Yoon: M.S. ECE, May 2013.
Master’s Report: Techniques for Data Mapping and Buffering to Exploit Asymmetry in Multi-Level Cell (Phase Change) Memory.

Jishen Zhao: Intern, Assistant Professor, University of California.


Undergraduate Student Alumni

Hitesh Arora: Summer undergraduate intern, 2013. IIT Guwahati, India.

Abhishek Bhowmick: Intern, B. Tech, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Albert Cho: Undergraduate intern, 2014. B.S. ECE CMU, May 2015.

Arnab Ghosh: Undergraduate researcher, 2014. B.S. IIT Kanpur, May 2015.

John Emmons: Undergraduate intern, Electrical Engineering, Washington University at St. Louis.

Rachael Harding: Undergraduate researcher, 2010. B.S. ECE CMU, Dec 2010. Currently a PhD student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Yuchen Hao: Summer undergraduate intern, 2012. Tsinghua University, May 2012.

Jeremie Kim: Junior, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University.

Greg Nazario: Summer undergraduate intern, 2011. Senior B.S. student, CMU.

Harsha Rastogi: Summer undergraduate intern, 2012. BITS Pilani, India.

Weikun Yang: Summer undergraduate intern, 2014. Peking University, May 2015.

Xiangyao Yu: Summer undergraduate intern, 2011. Tsinghua University, May 2011. Currently a PhD student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


High School Student Alumni

Aaron Cutright: Summer Intern, Pittsburgh Allderdice High School Senior, 2014


Visiting Scholar Alumni

Jongmoo Choi: Visiting professor. Dankook University, South Korea.

Hiroyuki Usui: Visiting researcher. Toshiba Corporation.