I am actively looking for students who are interested and have strong
background in programming languages, compilers, systems, and software
engineering to work with me. Students at all levels (undergraduates,
master students, and Ph.D. students) are welcome to join my group.
My primary research interests are static and dynamic program
analysis. I am interested both in developing fundamental analysis
techniques and in applying these techniques to solve real-world problems
in software, such as runtime bloat detection, security analysis,
debugging, etc. I am interested in working with highly-qualified and
highly-motivated students on research projects related to my (and your)
interests. If you are not 100\% sure whether you are qualified, please
look at the following criteria that (I think) a qualified and
motivated Ph.D. student should meet. Please goto LABEL A if you are
not seeking a doctoral degree in computer science.
1. You are proud of being a nerd. If you feel uncomfortable when
someone calls you nerd, please goto LABEL END. Check out this
article to see things that nerds like to do.
2. You are interested in doing research and plan to find a
research-oriented job (i.e., in either academia or industrial research
labs) after graduation. I'll try my best to help you improve your
chance to achieve your goal when you are in grad school.
3. It doesn't matter to you how many years it would take to get your
Ph.D. degree. Research excellence is the only thing that you care
about. I'll let you go when I think you are mature and competitive
enough. There is no time bound on this process.
4. You like writing code and have done a lot of implementation work
(using whatever language). You enjoy the moment when you see your
program does exactly things that you expect. You can spend a few hours
straight sitting in front of a computer solely for coding and debugging,
without any interruption (e.g., playing an online game or chatting
with a friend). I am not saying that you cannot do these things. What
matters is that you have experience of being wired in (go and watch
the movie "The Social Network" if you don't know what this means) so
that you know what high productivity means for you.
LABEL END: Otherwise, you are
not the kind of student I am looking for and I am not the kind of
advisor that you are expecting. Working together is not going to be
pleasant and mutually-beneficial. Please close this window. Thank you!
... Program terminated...
LABEL A:
Okay, now let's talk about the possibility of working together.
There are not a whole lot of things that I can do to improve your
chance of getting an offer, as decisions are made by the admissions
committee as a whole, instead of by individual faculty members. Of
course, if I think you are good and your experience perfectly matches
my interests, I can recommend you to the committee (and hopefully they
will trust me :).
If you send me an email regarding your application, I will not respond
if (1) this email has multiple recipients (in this case I will
remember you by putting you on my blacklist); (2) this email starts
with "Dear Sir or Dear Madam"; and (3) I don't think you have spent
time reading my papers and understanding what I do.
If you want a guaranteed reply, please read my technical
papers (especially the recent ones) and tell me what you think, how
your experience fits in my research agenda, and what you think should
be done to improve these papers.
UCI is the second youngest campus in the UC system. Both its
undergraduate program and its computer science graduate program are
highly ranked among all U.S. universities (Well, while I really don't
think ranking means anything, I just put it here in case someone
asks). UCI is located 3 miles from the Pacific Ocean in Southern
California (50 miles South of Los Angeles) with a very pleasant
year-round climate. The area offers numerous recreational and cultural
opportunities. If you are comparing UCI to somewhere with all year
around (maybe less) snow, please let me know. I will convince you why
you should come to a snow-less place like Irvine (temps usually no
higher than 80F (26C) in summer, no lower than 45F (7C) in winter).
As a junior faculty, I can spend a tremendous amount of time working
with you. You are guaranteed to have financial support during your
Ph.D. studies (if you make satisfactory progress). I will give you
concrete ideas to work on, discuss detailed implementation issues, and
help you overcome difficulties and publish top conference
papers. All in all, I will try my best to form you into a good
researcher so that you can conduct research independently and have
competency to get a decent research-oriented job when you graduate.