Three CSE Faculty Named 2024 Amazon Research Award Recipients

May 21, 2024
CSE'2024 Amazon Research Award recipients

Three faculty members from University of California San Diego’s Computer Science and Engineering Department are among the latest Amazon Research Award recipients. Associate Professors Yufei Ding, Sicun Gao and Nadia Heninger are part of a 98-member cohort, representing 51 universities in 15 countries, recently announced by Amazon.

Yufei Ding was recognized in the category AWS AI for her proposal, “A Hollistic Compiler and Runtime System for Efficient and Scalable LLM Serving.” Ding, who joined UC San Diego in 2023, researches the broad fields of domain-specific language design, architecture and compiler optimization, and hardware acceleration. Her interest in emerging technologies spans quantum computing, machine learning, and deep learning.

Sicun Gao is an awardee in the Automated Reasoning category for the third consecutive year and was recognized for his proposal, “Automated Reasoning Proof Optimization and Generalization in dReal.” Gao’s research focuses on practical algorithms for NP-hard search and optimization problems that arise in the decision, control, and design aspects of computational systems. His end goal is to build useful forms of automation and autonomy that are fundamentally reliable yet aggressively optimized.

Nadi Heninger’s proposal, “Bringing Modern Security Guarantees to End-to-End Encrypted Cloud Storage,” was a notable contribution in a new ARA category, Cryptography and Privacy. Heninger’s primary research interest is in mathematical cryptanalysis aimed at real-world applications, which she approaches using lattice techniques, computational number theory, coding theory, and network measurement.

Awards for this awards cycle were selected for the quality of their scientific content and potential impact in six categories: AI for Information Security, Automated Reasoning, AWS AI, AWS Crypography and Privacy, AWS Database Services, and Sustainability. This year’s awardees receive research funds and enjoy access to Amazon public datasets, along with AWS AI/ML services and tools.

--Kimberley Clementi