Rastislav Bodik

Ras Bodik is a Scientist at Google DeepMind and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington (currently on leave). Previously, he was Professor at the University of California, Berkeley (2003-2015) and Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (2000-2003).  He is currently a visiting researcher at Google Brain. He is best known for his work on foundations of algorithmic program synthesis and their applications in programmer tools (deep semantic autocomplete), end-user programming (web automation and data visualizations), data analytics (synthesis of SQL queries and parallelization of analytics), compilation (parallelizing web browser layout engines), systems biology (turning wet lab data into models of cells and suggestions of future experiments), and computer architecture (programming accelerators). His group released two influential frameworks for synthesizer construction: Sketch, the first algorithmic synthesizer for imperative programs (developed by Armando Solar-Lezama), and Rosette, a lightweight host language for solver-aided DSLs (developed by Emina Torlak).  At UW, he led the SandCat DARPA-funded project that applied formal methods across the system stack, and the Arion project on programming heterogeneous devices. His previous work included static and dynamic program analysis, hardware support for program analysis, and dynamic compilation. He is an ACM Fellow for contributions to program synthesis.