News & EventsDepartment Events & Announcements
Events
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Jun3
EVENT DETAILS
lessModern hardware is parallel and is increasingly relying on parallel programming to achieve
both performance and energy efficiency. However, today’s parallel programming places a disproportionate burden on developers, requiring them to design and fine-tune parallel execution strategies across diverse hardware platforms and varying program inputs. I postulate that optimizing compilers can relieve developers from this burden by automatically reasoning about parallel execution strategies while also enforcing correctness properties. Achieving high parallel performance across modern hardware requires selecting an effective parallel execution plan, including how and where parallelism should be expressed and implemented. To automate this selection process, I introduce the Parallel-Semantics Program Dependence Graph (PS-PDG), a compiler abstraction
that captures developer-encoded parallel semantics alongside compiler-derived analysis. PS-PDG
enables compilers to override suboptimal execution plans with superior alternatives. While static
execution-plan selection is effective for regular workloads, irregular and input-sensitive applica
tions require runtime adaptation of parallel granularity. To address this challenge, I introduce the
Heartbeat Compiler (HBC), a compilation system that automatically translates high-level fork
join parallelism into binaries capable of dynamically controlling task granularity through heartbeat
scheduling to eliminate the need for manual task-size tuning. Beyond performance, parallel C++
applications also face severe memory-safety risks arising from operations on data collections, in
cluding iterator invalidation. These bugs are difficult for existing tools to detect precisely and
become even harder to diagnose under nondeterministic thread interleavings. To address this chal
lenge, I introduce Ledger, a data collection-oriented static analyzer that provides high-precision
detection of invalidation vulnerabilities in programs that operate on complex data collections.TIME Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
LOCATION mudd 3501, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library) map it
CONTACT Jensen Smith jensen.smith@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Jun12
EVENT DETAILS
lessHi CS++ PhD students, faculty, staff, post-docs,
We will be hosting a BBQ to celebrate the end of this academic year!
When? Friday, June 12, 5-7 pm
Where? North side of Evanston Centennial parkWe will be cooking up American BBQ classics with plenty of snacks and cold drinks to go around (vegetarian and vegan food included).
Please RSVP by 5 pm on Thursday, June 11, so we can prepare enough food for everyone.
We have an RSVP list so that folks (signed in) can see who else is going. If you don’t see a friend or labmate signed up, make sure to reach out and invite them!
Looking forward to seeing y’all there!
Tommy, Ziyang, Yuchen, Maojiang, Alex, Melissa on behalf of CSSI
TIME Friday, June 12, 2026 at 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
CONTACT Computer Science Social Initiative cssi@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)
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Jun15
EVENT DETAILS
lessMcCormick School of Engineering PhD Hooding and Master's Degree Recognition Ceremony. The most up to date information can be found on our graduation webpage.
TIME Monday, June 15, 2026 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
CONTACT Andi Joppie andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
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Jun15
EVENT DETAILS
lessMcCormick School of Engineering Undergraduate Convocation. The most up to date information can be found on our graduation webpage.
TIME Monday, June 15, 2026 at 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
CONTACT Andi Joppie andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science