Graduate Profiles

Jonathan Valamehr - Graduate Student, Electrical & Computer Engineering

About Jonny:

• Hometown: Granada Hills, CA
• Study Area: Computer Architecture
• Degree Sought and Progress: PhD, 5th year
• Previous Degrees: BS and MS, both from UCSB (I can’t get enough of this place!)
  
  
• Important Awards and Honors: Hearst Foundation Scholarship 2007, URCA Research Grant 2007
• Professional Memberships: Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Types of Financial Aid Received: 3 TAships and many quarters of GSR funding. I have been fortunate enough to have had funding throughout my grad school career
• Hobbies / Activities / Interests: Magic (not The Gathering), basketball, reading (non-fiction), psychology
• Interesting aside about Jonny: I used to produce hip hop music

Jonny's Research:

• Advisor / Group: I am in the Architecture lab (Archlab) and I work with Tim Sherwood
• Research Interests: Computer architecture, Security and Cryptography, High-performance computing, Trusted computing
• Important Conferences Attended: I presented a paper at ACSAC 2010 and have attended several of the big architecture conferences such as ISCA and ASPLOS
• Dissertation Topic: Novel Methods of Augmenting High Performance Processors with Security Hardware
• Title of Most Important Publication to Date: "Hardware Assistance for Trustworthy Systems through 3-D Integration" (ACSAC 2010)
• UCSB Personal Website: Jonathan Valamehr

Tell us about your research: As modern high performance microprocessors increase in complexity, the way multiple programs of varying levels of trust interact with each other on a system can oftentimes become problematic. Information that one program may intend to keep secret may be read by a malicious program. This is no good! My research cuts across a few domains and attempts to leverage the benefits of hardware solutions to mitigate pervasive security challenges. My recent work applies emerging technologies in computer architecture to solve security vulnerabilities that affect microprocessors today. More details can be found in our ACSAC 2010 paper, where we are the first to propose using 3D die stacking to augment the capabilities of commodity processors to add security-related functionality.

How did you get into your area of research?: In high school, I was obsessed with building computers (before I had any idea how they worked) and always wanted to build a machine with the newest, fastest processor to crush my neighbors in the latest video games. Then in my junior year, I thoroughly enjoyed my Computer Architecture class (ECE 154) and after speaking with the instructor, he asked me if I wanted to do undergrad research. After doing that for a quarter, I was hooked. Through the project I was working on, I eventually met Tim and joined his lab.

Why you selected your department and UCSB in regards to your research area? One of the main reasons I chose ECE @ UCSB is because of the diversity in research and the freedom one has in choosing their projects here. While I started my graduate career working on architecture problems, I later became interested in security and cryptography as well. Now I am involved on several projects in these fields and get to work with other professors (not just my advisor) who are experts in them. There are a lot of opportunities to dive deep into one subject, or work on a breadth of topics. The sky is the limit here.

Thoughts on working in a group research environment and working with an advisor: Working with an advisor is an amazing experience because you have an expert to help you through the whole process of conducting novel research and shine light on things that would take you much more time (if ever) to do on your own. It is phenomenal. You get training and guidance from a master in the field. Think of it like “The Karate Kid”, without the fence painting.

What do you find particularly rewarding about your research?: Research is all about defining a problem and using all of your training towards solving it and its unique set of challenges. What I find especially rewarding is the ability to attack a problem that doesn’t have a solution so far – there is no answer key in this business. I get to be creative and innovate on the cutting edge of technology. How many people can say that?

UCSB prides itself on its collaborative atmosphere. Tell us about your collaborations: The collaborative nature at UCSB is amazing. One example of this — I am able to have Tim as my advisor, even though he is officially in the CS department and I am in the ECE department. Working with the right people on the right projects makes me happy and productive. UCSB has also allowed me to meet many researchers and work with many people outside of my group. I have collaborated on many of my lab members’ projects. I also work with several professors in ECE and CS, as well as professors at UCSD and NPS and I have worked with several members from Microsoft Research. I get to hear lots of opinions on research directions as well as leverage the expertise of many others.

What do you plan to do this Summer?: In 2010, I interned in the Architecture team at Intel Oregon. I worked on developing new features for the Atom line of processors. I was recruited by Intel because of my strong resume, which included architecture work at UCSB. In 2011, I interned at Microsoft Research working on hardware security problems. My advisor had previously worked at MSR and knew of an internship opportunity there, so he recommended me. This coming summer, I will be going back to Intel for another internship with the Architecture team.

Where will your research take you next?: I have interned at Intel and Microsoft Research, and I really enjoyed my time at both companies doing industry research. As much as I want to stay in academia forever and ever, I plan on joining a company and applying my expertise to shape the processors of tomorrow.

Jonny and Academics:

• What do you think are the strengths of the Electrical & Computer Engineering graduate program?: The main strength of the department is its faculty and staff support. You will get astounding work done working with coveted professors and have many people there to help you along the way with anything you need.
• Favorite Course: My favorite course at UCSB so far has been the Senior Capstone project class (ECE 189) with Steve Butner. I really enjoyed this class because we had the freedom to come up with any project we thought would be useful in everyday life and received money to build it from the ground up. Seeing a project from idea to blueprint to prototype to final product was very rewarding, eye-opening and fun.
• Teaching Assistant (TA) experience: I have been a TA three times for introductory Computer Architecture courses and I love it. I have organized and taught both lab sessions and discussion sections. TA’ing is a great opportunity to relay the information you know about something and help students learn in a very low pressure situation. I think teaching is about finding the best way to get a student to intuitively understand a subject, rather than getting a superficial understanding in that moment. You want the lesson to stick for a long time, not disappear after the final exam.
• Share your experience about the PhD exams: I have taken the screening exam, and I am preparing for the qualifying exam. The screening exam was a lot of hard work, but it made me refresh my knowledge of Computer Engineering and allowed me to start my graduate studies with a solid foundation in all 5 subject areas I chose. Not only was the end goal of passing it completed, but the actual process of studying for it gave me confidence to start my graduate career on the right foot.

Some Favorites Things About Being at UCSB:

• UCSB: The strong work/life balance at UCSB is unparalleled. I never feel like I am overwhelmed by work and never feel like my day stops when I leave campus.
• Electrical & Computer Engineering Department: The department really feels like a family. I know almost everyone on a first name basis, and they are always willing to have a chat or help if you need something. Also, our building is a 60-second stroll from the beach, so taking a break during work and walking to the ocean is very easy.
• Santa Barbara: The best part of Santa Barbara is the multitude of activities and events such as concerts, hiking trips, and barbecues. You will never be bored! There is always something to do and fun company to go along.

Graduate Student & Social Life and Living Situation:

• Graduate Student Life: Quality of life as a grad student is astounding. I am able to do everything my heart desires. Rather than strive for a work/life balance, I like to strive towards having a work/life separation. This has really helped me in doing everything I want to do; I’m able to hang out with friends, go visit family, exercise and spend time on my hobbies without worrying about my work. At the same time, this allows me to completely focus on my research while I am in my lab and work efficiently.
• What About Life in Santa Barbara?: I live in the San Clemente graduate apartments and I really enjoy it there. There are events thrown weekly such as bagel hours, barbecues, and social mixers, so it’s very easy to meet a lot of other grad students and make friends. I also enjoy the nightlife in Downtown Santa Barbara and venture there every so often with my pals and have a blast. Living in Santa Barbara is awesome; it’s why I’ve been here for 9 years!

Advice to prospective graduate students: Enjoy your time here and plan out all of the things you want to do, because time flies in Santa Barbara. For the academic side of things, make it a point to talk to other students and any faculty whose work you are interested in, because you never know what cool project you could end up working on with them.

Kunal Arya - Graduate Student, Electrical and Computer Engineering

About Kunal:

• Hometown: Anaheim, CA
• Study Area: System-level Synthesis
• Degree Sought and Progress: M.S. / Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering (in 5th year of program)
• Previous Degrees: B.S., Computer Engineering, UC Santa Cruz
  
  
• Activities and Interests: playing music, biking, sketching
• Professional Memberships: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
• Interesting aside about Kunal: I've been taking piano classes from the music department, which has been a great way to exercise different parts of my brain

Kunal's Research:

• Advisor / Group: Professor Forrest Brewer
• Research Interests: computer architecture, automated embedded system design, formal verification
• Dissertation Title: "Mixed Hardware-Software Synthesis"

Tell us about your research: the research we do is a focused attempt at system-level synthesis. For applications of relatively manageable scale, we are creating tools that will allow designers to make large-scale, coarse-grained architectural decisions early on. By allowing them to reach working designs quickly, they can target optimizations where it really matters. If the optimization criteria is e.g. average energy dissipation against some average latency, it isn't obvious what sorts of choices about memory protocols, hardware/software partitioning, and architectural tricks (forwarding, speculation) will make the biggest impact on the end result. Our tools will bear the burden of cumbersome tasks (such as evaluating different memory interaction protocols) to make complex digital design more sensible and metric-driven, rather than heuristic and purely experience based.

How did you get into your area of research?: While I was doing research as an undergrad, I saw that newer, more powerful FPGA platforms had tremendous potential -- however, there was no easy way to realize complex designs on them, especially not for designers that don't have strong computer engineering fundamentals. I was interested in seeing what was possible. When I came to UCSB, I had no background in synthesis, so I didn't realize the sheer scale of the problem. It wasn't until after a few meetings with my advisor that I started to grasp just how difficult the problem really was. Despite that, he was enthusiastic and seemed willing to try a few things, so long as we trimmed the problem down to something much more realistic. In the end, I have a project which looks very promising, and we hope to have some pretty exciting results when we're done.

Why you selected your department and UCSB in regards to your research area? A few of the professors in ECE had strong ties to the synthesis community (specifically with programmable logic), so it seemed like a good fit. Also, the size of the department was a big factor: it is just the right medium between a large university with the resources to support pretty advanced research versus a smaller, accessible faculty that makes the experience more personal.

What do you find particularly rewarding about your research?: There is a sense of pride when everything comes together and you have results that you can brag about. So far, I have enjoyed the freedom I've had in shaping where this work is headed, largely due to a good working relationship with my advisor (he is always open to new ideas).

Thoughts on working in a group research environment and working with an advisor: The great thing about working with an advisor is that you essentially get to piggyback on their experience. Left to my own devices, I would take the first, most obvious route that would likely go nowhere. On the other hand, when someone is there to give me insight into what kinds of problems I will face based on what I think are benign decisions, I find that I end up getting to the heart of the matter quickly. Eventually, the experience he brings (and his seemingly endless ability to see potential in a new idea) and the point-of-view I bring (from e.g. undergrad research) meet at our current research. As far as working in a group, I really enjoy the lab I work in because it's a great place to bound ideas off of other people. We're often engaged in some deep discussion about whatever new fascinating technologies have come out. I've noticed that people at UCSB share a certain enthusiasm about learning and a genuine intellectual curiosity. More importantly, they are willing to share what they know and provide input. I can always reliably get feedback from my labmates that makes me think about aspects of the problem which I otherwise wouldn't have considered.

UCSB prides itself on its collaborative atmosphere. Do you collaborate with others?: Getting feedback from other research groups is helpful for two primary reasons. First, it gives us a fresh perspective from a person who has not sat through our meetings. A clean-slate description of the problem can often reveal potential drawbacks in the overall goals (e.g. leading us to ask, "is this really the right way to solve the fundamental problem?"). Second, their own experiences can guide where we target our work. If we want to solve real, on-the-ground problems, then we need to keep in mind which problems are actually important, thereby keeping the research relevant, applicable, and interesting.

What did you do this past Summer?: I spent the summer finally making progress on my research. I also helped out as much as I could with the undergrads who were doing summer research in the lab; it's a welcome change of pace, and let's me practice teaching.

Where will your research take you next?: I will likely work in industry for a while, and maybe consider commercial options for my research if the opportunity presents itself. Academia is certainly an option down the line.

Kunal and Academics:

• What do you think are the strengths of the ECE graduate program?: For classes, generally there are resources if you're struggling with the course. The professors and TAs alike have reasonable office hours, and are receptive to questions via e.g. email. Additionally, the other grad students are friendly and helpful, and are usually willing to get together in study groups -- there isn't a sense of cut-throat, hostile competition, and in the end that means the student body as a whole does better academically. On the research front, there is a tremendous number of resources from the library, department, and faculty -- it's amazing how often it has helped me to speak to professors from other departments. Viewpoints from experts in those fields helps us think about the problem differently than we would otherwise.
• Favorite Course: It's difficult to choose one, so I'll mention a few -- Professor Sherwood's architecture course offered through the CS department showed me how to view the problem abstractly, while Professor Melliar-Smith's equivalent ECE architecture course showed me the nitty-gritty details. The two courses coupled well, and made it clear how real CPU designs are realized from abstract levels down to the gate-level. Professor Richard Wolski's Operating Systems course was also fantastic -- similarly to the architecture courses, it was a generalization of what was covered in undergrad courses.
• Teaching Assistant (TA) experience: I TA'ed a junior-level digital design course, and while I did spend quite a bit of time in the lab (especially near tests), it was an incredibly rewarding experience. It's also a great way to review material from undergrad -- it made that part of the screening exam a breeze. Moreover, learning to effectively communicate complex topics to someone who has never seen them turns out to be surprisingly useful for publishing. The undergraduates give you immediate feedback on what is or what is not clear, a luxury that you don't often get from academic reviewers.
• Share your experience about the PhD exams: The screening exam can be a source of stress, but it helps to form a study group with like-minded students that you know you are compatible with. Preparation is key.

Why Electrical and Computer Engineering and UCSB?: I chose UCSB's ECE department in part because I was impressed with how organized and well-run it is. During the first campus visit, the faculty, staff, and students were approachable and willing to help out however they could. When I met with a few professors to discuss possible research, they were open to the prospect of doing research that was more in line with my interests.

Some Favorites Things About Being at UCSB:

• UCSB: It has a small-department feel with large-university resources -- so far, I've found the professors to be accessible, helpful, and genuinely concerned about students' well being. On the administrative side, the department is run like a well-oiled machine.
• Electrical and Computer Engineering Department: Aside from the friendly and helpful staff, the accessibility of professors. Also, the Arts & Lectures group brings big-name lecturers and performers to campus, and tickets for students are subsidized.
• Santa Barbara: The geography, bike paths everywhere, access to local farmers, perks of a large city (concerts, symphony, plays) without any of the drawbacks.

Graduate Student & Social Life and Living Situation:

• Graduate Student Life: The key to staying sane is knowing your limits, and the easiest way to prevent getting burned out is making time for something you enjoy outside of class and research. Santa Barbara really has a lot to offer: athletics (from biking, running, to playing basketball, tennis, or soccer in a co-ed team), music (classes offered through the music department, social bands, choirs, quartets), dance (everything from ballroom to salsa to line dancing -- you can literally attend a social dancing lesson every day of the week), an active art scene (the first Thursdays of each month, they have a wine and art tour downtown), open mics, poetry readings, or just simple beach BBQs. Typically, you can incorporate your social life into what you enjoy doing, and when you need a break from the area, there's always the option of a short road trip down to LA with some friends. For people without cars, there's an affordable car sharing program through the university.
• What About Life in Santa Barbara?: I live in Ellwood, intentionally away from campus to create a clear distinction between campus and home, and to force myself to bike everyday. It's a beautiful bike ride, and works wonders for stress. It was probably the best decision I made here. My social life is as active as I want it to be -- between salsa dancing and having friends a short bike ride away for a board game night, I've rarely felt like I was missing out.

Advice to prospective graduate students: Santa Barbara is an interesting place, because it has much more to offer than it seems. While most people will initially focus on the beach, the weather, and the geography (rightfully so), this only begins to describe what the city has to offer. It is an incredibly diverse place -- academically and otherwise -- coupled with a well-run university.

Peter Lisherness - Graduate Student, Electrical and Computer Engineering

About Peter:

• Hometown: Louisville, KY
• Study Area: Electronic Design Automation
• Degree Sought and Progress: Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering (in 4th year of program)
• Previous Degrees: B.S. and M.S. in EE and MBA from U. of Louisville
  
  
• Activities and Interests: skiing, hiking, cooking, crossword puzzles
• Professional Memberships: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society

Peter's Research:

• Advisor / Group: Tim Cheng / SoC Design and Test Lab
• Research Interests: verification, validation, test, coverage metrics, reliability
• Dissertation Title: "Validation Coverage Metrics and their Applications"
• Title of Most Important Publication to Date: Peter Lisherness and Kwang-Ting (Tim) Cheng. 2010. SCEMIT: A SystemC Error and Mutation Injection Tool. In Proceedings of the 47th Design Automation Conference (DAC '10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 228-233.
• Important Awards & Honors: 2008-09 Outstanding Computer Engineering Teaching Assistant
• Important Conferences Attended: Design Automation Conference (DAC) - paper; IEEE International High Level Design Validation and Test Workshop (HLDVT) - paper; International Test Conference (ITC); and IEEE VLSI Test Symposium (VTS)
• Financial Assistance Received: Teaching Assistantship (TA) and Graduate Student Researcher (GSR)
• Website: https://sites.google.com/site/peterl/

Tell us about your research: My work currently focuses on verification and validation coverage metrics for large-scale circuits. These functional test tasks can be somewhat challenging: it is often much easier to design a circuit than it is to show that you designed the right circuit. Coverage metrics are a way of measuring our thoroughness in testing and exposing aspects of the design that have not been given sufficient attention.

How did you get into your area of research?: I’ve been writing software since I was a kid and doing it as a job since I was 13. When I entered college I tried to mix things up by pursuing electrical engineering instead of computer science. I guess that plan backfired; I still write software, although the things I’m writing rely just as much on my electrical engineering education.

What do you find particularly rewarding about your research?: As a programmer, design automation is great because it has a lot of scalability issues. I’ve always loved algorithms and optimization, and turning a week-long experiment into a day- or hour-long one with a couple clever tweaks is extremely gratifying. Every time I run an experiment to answer some question I have, it always leads to another question. It is a constant stream of puzzles, an endless journey. It keeps my mind occupied and always gives me something new and exciting to work on.

Thoughts on working in a group research environment and working with an advisor: My group members are a great support network. They help shoot down foolish ideas, strengthen good ones, and are good friends as well. My advisor, Professor Tim Cheng, is great to work with. His experience is invaluable in guiding my research toward something useful and keeping me focused.

UCSB prides itself on its collaborative atmosphere. Do you collaborate with others?: While the core of my work does not involve intense collaboration (e.g. daily interaction or shared source code), working with others is still a big part of it. In addition to weekly group meetings, my labmates and I will frequently bounce ideas off of each other, exchange papers for editing, and practice presentations. I also interact with industry a lot, which is pretty common in the CE program. First, there are grant reviews, where we present our latest research directly to the companies that sponsor us. I have also done two internships with Intel (totaling 10 months), which provided invaluable experience and perspective for my research. My supervisor from Intel is also on my thesis committee and a mentor on my grant, so he and I communicate regularly to make sure the work is proceeding in a meaningful direction. Finally, I meet with both industry and other universities at conferences. One benefit to being in California is the proximity of most top conferences, which tend to be held within driving distance. Even if I don’t have a paper, I will sometimes go for a workshop or to help as a volunteer. You meet many students from other universities at these events, people who will be your future colleagues.

What did you do this past Summer?: I spent this last summer on internship at Intel in Austin, TX. It was a great experience, but I was glad to come back home to Santa Barbara.

Where will your research take you next?: Immediately after graduating I plan to take a job in industry. With any luck, I’ll find a position that lets me publish enough to remain academically relevant so that my future options are kept open. Eventually I would like to teach, even if only part-time as an adjunct professor.

Peter and Academics:

• What do you think are the strengths of the ECE graduate program?: The graduate courses are very in-depth: they really show both the history of as well as the latest developments in their respective topics. Standards are high and it takes a lot of hard work to graduate, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
• Favorite Course: Although I didn’t take it for credit, I sat in on and thoroughly enjoyed the graduate-level advanced computer architecture course. Professor Melliar-Smith’s lectures are always very engaging, and really make you think.
• Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) and Teaching Assistant (TA) experience: Most of the time I am a GSR, but I’ve done two TAs. The first was computer architecture, which consisted of discussion section, office hours, and grading. I’ll admit I’m not too fond of grading, which is why I opted for this upper-division class with fewer students. In discussion section and office hours you really get to know the students, it is great seeing them figuring things out. My second TA was computer design, and I ended up having many of the same students as before. This is a lab class where students build a simple microprocessor using various discrete logic components and an FPGA. I spent a ton of time in the lab showing them how to debug Verilog code and big, tangled breadboards. It was very demanding, but you end up feeling a personal responsibility to make sure that everyone gets everything they can out of the class.
• Share your experience about the PhD exams: I was pretty frightened about the screening exam, and joined a study group of around 8 people months in advance. This was the first time I had ever been in a study group, or ever really seriously studied, for that matter. When the day finally arrived I made my way through it with confidence and ease, but I can’t imagine how impossible it would have been if I hadn’t done all that studying. The qualifying exam was a much less intimidating matter, albeit arguably more important. By the time I was ready for it, I already had my research topic pretty well figured out and slides from conferences I was able to use in the presentation.

Why Electrical and Computer Engineering and UCSB?: When I first applied I didn’t know exactly what research I wanted to do... in retrospect I don’t think anyone really does until after a few years working on their PhD. UCSB’s ECE department has lots of faculty working in electronic design automation in lots of different directions, so I knew I would find something that inspired me.

Some Favorites Things About Being at UCSB:

• UCSB: biking or walking everywhere, laid-back atmosphere
• Electrical and Computer Engineering Department: plenty of grad students, lots of great, friendly staff and faculty
• Santa Barbara: the weather, the ocean, the mountains, the farmers' markets

Graduate Student & Social Life and Living Situation:

• Graduate Student Life: My quality of life depends a lot on whether there is a conference deadline looming. Most of the time, I work regular hours and still have weekends free for skiing, hiking, and cookouts at Goleta Beach. When a deadline approaches though, the intensity of work increases and I don't have much free time in my weekends or evenings. I still manage to cook dinner and get to the gym a couple times a week, but it can be pretty intense. Right after a deadline I usually take it easy for a week or so to recharge and catch up on chores... and then the cycle starts all over again.
• What About Life in Santa Barbara?: I live in Family Student Housing with my wife, who is also a PhD student in the ECE department. We have a number of friends (also primarily ECE grad students) who live nearby that we hang out with on the weekends or go on trips with during breaks. Living in Santa Barbara is great: you are always so close to nature. There is always some sort of flower in bloom along my daily bike ride into the lab, and whenever I want to clear my head I can just walk down to the beach and listen to the ocean. The farmers' market runs year-round with some of the freshest and cheapest food you can find anywhere. Where else can you get 50 cent locally grown avocados? You're also never trapped in SB. Within a day's drive I can be in San Francisco, Tahoe, San Diego, Las Vegas, Sequoia, or, most often, at Mammoth Mountain.

Advice to prospective graduate students: UCSB is a top research institution located in paradise; I feel immensely fortunate to be here. Quality of life is at least as important as quality of education, and you don't have to pick just one or the other.

Vlasia Anagnostopoulou - Graduate Student, Computer Science

About Vlasia:

• Hometown: Athens, Greece
• Study Area: Computer Architecture, Green Computing, Energy Efficiency
• Degree Sought and Progress: Fourth Year / Masters & PhD in CS
• Previous Degrees: Diploma from the National Technical University of Athens
• Activities and Interests: Argentine tango, swimming, languages, literature, traveling
• UCSB Student Organizations: Argentine tango club
• Professional Memberships: ACM-SIGARCH
• Interesting aside about Vlasia: she speaks four foreign languages

Vlasia's Research:

• Advisor / Group: Professor Fred Chong / Archlab
• Dissertation Title: Energy-efficiency in Datacenters
• Title of Most Important Publication to Date: "Quantifying the Environmental Advantages of Large-Scale Computing"
• Important Awards & Honors: Scholarship to attend the CRA-W conference, an annual event for women in Computer Science
• Important Conferences Attended: ISCA (presented at a workshop session), IGCC (presented a paper)
• Financial Assistance Received: TAship, RAship
• Website: http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~vlasia/

Tell us about your research: My research is about energy-efficiency in datacenters. Our latest thing is the development of a new low-power state for servers, and the middleware to exploit this state on a cluster of servers in a datacenter. The purpose of this hardware and software approach is to save energy while respecting the performance guarantees that are required for internet-applications run on datacenter clusters.

How did you get into your area of research?: I knew that my general area of research was going to be Computer Architecture -- so when my advisor recommended the energy-efficiency project, I found it very exciting because it required both a holistic and at the same time very detailed understanding of server clusters. Besides, it had the potential to positively affect the environment.

What do you find particularly rewarding about your research?: There are various things that I find rewarding about my research. One is that I love learning about the organization and architecture of computer systems. Moreover, I find very exciting trying to tweak the design and/or operation of a system in order to achieve a particular goal. My research is about energy-efficiency in large-scale computer systems, so I naturally find it very rewarding that the techniques I develop, when applied at a large scale, could actually have a significant reduction in our demand for energy.

Thoughts on working in a group research environment and working with an advisor: I have collaborated with several fellow grad students and the general culture in the lab is to sit together and learn from one another. I find that bringing together our different perspectives is a real mind-opener and that the exchange of information with my lab-mates helps me improve my technical skills much faster. Working with my advisor is a multi-facet lesson of its own. He helps me grasp the larger picture and understand how to identify the path to take my research. In short, he has helped me a lot in creating value out of my work. I also appreciate the fact that he has been a source of a lot of inspiration for me during somewhat stale times. Another lesson that I have learned from working together is how to work a lot more efficiently.

What did you do this Summer?: This summer I built on my research at UCSB and submitted a paper to one of the most important conferences in my field.

Where will your research take you next?: Not sure yet. But I love research and I am sure that my research is going to take me either to an industry with strong research culture and/or academia.

Vlasia and Academics:

• What do you think are the strengths of the CS graduate program?: The CE program requires students to pass 10 courses before taking their qualifying exam and later their proposal and defense exams. This helped me built a good technical base before starting my own research. I have also gotten to collaborate with several fellow grad students and got to know the research of many professors. Another strength of the graduate program is that collaboration among students and/or faculty from the same or other departments is very much encouraged.
• Favorite Course: Green Computing. Absolutely stimulating course. It was a course where I learned a lot about techniques to save energy in computing systems and an interesting thing that came up -- that in many cases these techniques are useless if the political and/or economical aspects of the innovation are neglected.
• Teaching Assistant (TA) experience: As a TA, I taught Computer Hardware/Software Interface, Operating Systems, Intro to Programming languages, and Intro to Data structures. My approach was to engage the students in the discussion as much as possible, as in some cases freshmen students have a somewhat passive attitude in the class. I found it very rewarding towards the end of the quarter when the students looked a lot more confident solving problems in front of the rest of the class!

Why Computer Science and UCSB?: I chose the CS department at UCSB because of the research in Computer Architecture. I saw that in the particular lab, there were many interesting projects and the publications from these projects looked very inspiring. The professors in charge of the lab all had very solid academic records, and on top of that, they were easy to approach.

Some Favorites Things About Being at UCSB:

• UCSB: Solid academic program
• Computer Science Department: Great vibe from the faculty and fellow grad students
• Santa Barbara: Quality of life (short distances, good weather, nature venues)

Graduate Student & Social Life and Living Situation:

• Graduate Student Life: Life as a grad student implies lots of flexibility concerning the work and the work schedule. Personally, I try to work a consistent amount of hours during the week, and engage in my hobbies, often with friends, during the weekends. However, I do enjoy the times before a submission deadline, when I work a lot more intensely. These times tend to be extra creative and the sense of accomplishment which follows right after the submission makes it all worth the effort. I usually give in right after a deadline by going away for a few days with friends.
• Social Life: My social life consists of outdoor activities, like swimming and running by the beach, dancing (there is quite a dancing community in SB, taken the size of the city), and attending events from the Arts & Lectures program at UCSB. These events include various film festivals (e.g. on human-rights), concerts, dance performances, lectures from influential speakers, and they run throughout the whole year. Besides, there are plenty of small galleries which one can visit during the "1st Thursday of the month" -- an arts event that takes place once per month. In short, Santa Barbara features plenty of sports and cultural happenings.
• What part of town do you live in?: I live in downtown Santa Barbara which is it easy to reach everything. UCSB is a 10-minute bus ride and most theaters and dance venues are at a walkable distance from where I live. Many friends of mine live nearby. Taken that in my hometown one has to ride on average an hour to get from one part of the city to another, I can really appreciate how everything is close.

Advice to prospective graduate students: I feel that few other campuses could combine a solid academic program with the right culture (friendly faculty, staff and fellow grad students) and at a place with such quality of life.