News & Events

Department Events & Announcements

Events

• Jun

  3

  Yian Su CS PhD Final Defense: Automating Parallel Execution Plan Selection and Tuning

  Department of Computer Science (CS)

  2:00 PM mudd 3501, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)

  EVENT DETAILS

  Modern 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.

  more less

  TIME Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

  LOCATION mudd 3501, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)    map it

  ADD TO CALENDAR

  CONTACT Jensen Smith    jensen.smith@northwestern.edu EMAIL

  CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)

• Jun

  5

  Jiahao Yu CS PhD Final Defense: Advancing Cybersecurity through Explainable AI

  Department of Computer Science (CS)

  9:00 AM

  EVENT DETAILS

  There is growing momentum—from industry, government, and academia—to use AI for automating cybersecurity tasks. Yet practitioners remain skeptical: while 87% of security leaders expect AI to enhance their roles, only 9% believe it will replace significant parts of them. This gap stems from two fundamental barriers: limited capability and lack of trust. In this talk, I present my research on addressing these barriers through explainable AI. I first introduce StateMask, a method that automatically identifies critical decision steps in AI agent trajectories, enabling security professionals to understand why an AI-generated patch succeeded or failed. A user study with 41 experienced developers shows that 89% find our explanations aligned with their reasoning. I then present GPO, which leverages these explanations to synthesize high-quality training data without expensive expert annotation, thereby improving model capability. GPO-trained open-source models achieve performance competitive with leading commercial models on vulnerability patching, and its extension, EntroPO, ranks 1st on SWE-Bench Lite among all open-weight models. I conclude by discussing future directions toward building AI systems that are robust to imperfect data, trusted by security professionals, and capable of tackling real-world cybersecurity challenges.

  more less

  TIME Friday, June 5, 2026 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

  ADD TO CALENDAR

  CONTACT Jensen Smith    jensen.smith@northwestern.edu EMAIL

  CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)

• Jun

  12

  CSSI End of Year BBQ

  Department of Computer Science (CS)

  5:00 PM

  EVENT DETAILS

  Hi 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 park

  We will be cooking up American BBQ classics with plenty of snacks and cold drinks to go around (vegetarian and vegan food included).

  RSVP HERE

  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

  Register Now

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  TIME Friday, June 12, 2026 at 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

  ADD TO CALENDAR

  CONTACT Computer Science Social Initiative    cssi@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU EMAIL

  CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)

• Jun

  15

  Northwestern Engineering PhD Hooding and Master's Degree Recognition Ceremony

  McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  9:00 AM

  EVENT DETAILS

  McCormick School of Engineering PhD Hooding and Master's Degree Recognition Ceremony. The most up to date information can be found on our graduation webpage.

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  TIME Monday, June 15, 2026 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

  ADD TO CALENDAR

  CONTACT Andi Joppie    andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL

  CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

• Jun

  15

  Northwestern Engineering Undergraduate Convocation

  McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  2:00 PM

  EVENT DETAILS

  McCormick School of Engineering Undergraduate Convocation. The most up to date information can be found on our graduation webpage.

  more less

  TIME Monday, June 15, 2026 at 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

  ADD TO CALENDAR

  CONTACT Andi Joppie    andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL

  CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science