About
I will be starting as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Wellesley College in Fall of 2023!
I am a final-year PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University and an NSF GRFP fellow. I work with Adrian Sampson in the Computer Architecture and Programming Abstractions research group. My research interests span programming languages and systems, with a special affinity for applied formal methods. I like systems that use solver-aided reasoning to make it easier for developers to trust their low-level code. I work on Diospyros, a compiler that uses equality saturation to find vectorization for energy-efficient hardware, and the Kani Rust Verifier, a bit-precise verifier for sequential Rust code.
Recently, I have been contributing to verification efforts for ISLE, a term-rewriting language for instruction lowering within Cranelift (a native code generator for Wasmtime and an alternative backend for Rust).
I completed my bachelor’s at Brown, where I worked on some projects using modeling tools and refinement types. I spent two years at Apple engineering health software for the iPhone and Apple Watch.
News
- I will be starting as an Assistant Professor at Wellesley College next fall! [January 2023]
- I’ll teach CS2110: Object-Oriented Programming and Data Structures this summer. [April 2022]
- I will serve on the program committee of the EGRAPHS workshop. [March 2022]
- Our paper on verifying dynamic trait objects in Rust was accepted to ICSE SEIP! [January 2022]
- I gave a guest lecture on Diospyros to Wellesley’s Principals of Programming course. [December 2021]
- I passed my A exam (admission to candidacy/thesis proposal)! [December 2021]
- I interned with the AWS Automated Reasoning Group, working on improving dynamic dispatch support within the Kani Rust Verifier. [June 2021]
- I gave a guest lecture on Diospyros at Brown’s Logic for Systems seminar. [April 2021]
- I had a blast presenting our work on Diospyros at UCSC’s Languages, Systems, and Data seminar. [December 2020]
- Our full-length paper on Diospyros was accepted to ASPLOS 2021! [November 2020]
- I presented our work-in-progress short paper on Diospyros at LCTES 2020. [June 2020]
- Rachit Nigam and I are finalists for Qualcomm’s Innovation Fellowship. [April 2020]
- I was fortunate to be awarded the NSF’s GRFP fellowship. [March 2020]
- Honored to have my work as a Head TA mentioned in the acknowledgments of Professor Andy van Dam’s Reflections on an introductory CS course, CS15, at Brown University in ACM Inroads. [November 2018]
Publications
Conference Papers
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“Verifying Dynamic Trait Objects in Rust” Alexa VanHattum, Daniel Schwartz-Narbonne, Nathan Chong, and Adrian Sampson. In ICSE Software Engineering in Practice 2022. (local pdf, 20 minute talk video).
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“Vectorization for Digital Signal Processors via Equality Saturation” Alexa VanHattum, Rachit Nigam, Vincent T. Lee, James Bornholt, Adrian Sampson. In ASPLOS 2021. (local pdf, 5 minute talk video, 17 minute talk video)
Short Papers
- “A Synthesis-aided Compiler for DSP Architectures (WiP Paper).” Alexa VanHattum*, Rachit Nigam*, Vincent T. Lee, James Bornholt, Adrian Sampson (*equal contribution). In LCTES 2020. (local pdf, talk video).
Recorded Talks
- Vectorization for Digital Signal Processors via Equality Saturation. ASPLOS 2021. 5 minute talk video, 17 minute talk video.
- A Synthesis-aided Compiler for DSP Architectures (WiP Paper) for LCTES 2020 [June 2020]
- What’s New in Health (slides) at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference [Spring 2017]
Teaching
Cornell University
- Instructor of Record for CS2110: Object-Oriented Programming and Data Structures [Summer 2022]
- ~70 students. Added programming labs & additional active learning exercises.
- Grad TA (part-time) for CS 4110: Programming Languages & Logics [Fall 2020]
- Grad TA for CS 4110: Programming Languages & Logics [Fall 2018]
Brown University
- Head TA for CS 195y: Logic for Systems [Spring 2016]
- Head TA for CS 15: Intro. Object-Oriented Programming & Computer Science [Fall 2015]
- TA for CS 22: Discrete Math & Probability [Spring 2015]
- TA for CS 15: Intro. Object-Oriented Programming & Computer Science [Fall 2014]
- TA for CS 8: First Byte of Computer Science [Spring 2014]
Service
- I am on the program committee for the 2022 EGRAPHS workshop at PLDI.
- I am on the executive board for Graduate Students for Gender Inclusion in Computing at Cornell.
- I co-organized Cornell’s Programming Languages Discussion Group (PLDG) from Aug 2020-Dec 2021.
- I was on the OOPSLA 2020 Artifact Evaluation Committee.
- I was on the CS department’s 2020 Fall Teaching Committee.
- I helped organize the CS department’s colloquium talks.
- I co-organized Cornell’s 2019 Admitted PhD Student Visit Day.
- I volunteered at Cornell’s 2019 Girls’ Adventures In Math.