Benjamin I Ylvisaker
     
Paul G. Allen Center, Rm. 402     420 NE 43rd St
University of Washington   Seattle, WA 98105-6538
Box 352350   408.230.7059 (mobile)
Seattle, WA 98195-2350   ben8@cs.washington.edu
206.616.1846 (office)    

OBJECTIVE

I am a Ph.D. student in computer science and engineering who is seeking a summer internship in fields related to parallel programming languages and parallel computer architecture. Specifically, I am interested in programming languages and compilation systems for fine-grained parallel computers such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), vector computers, and reconfigurable computers.


EDUCATION

University of Washington
Ph.D. Student, Computer Science and Engineering, expected 2008.
Advisor: Carl Ebeling
Carnegie Mellon University
M.S., Electrical and Computer Engineering, August 2004.
Advisor: Herman Schmit
Relevant courses: Advanced Computer Architecture, VLSI CAD: Logic to Layout, Multiprocessor Architecture, Semantics of Sequential and Parallel Programs.
Carnegie Mellon University
B.S. with University Honors, Electrical and Computer Engineering with a minor in Computer Science, May 2001.
GPA: 3.76 (3.85 in major)
Relevant courses: Advanced Digital Design Project, Algorithm Design and Analysis, Compiler Design, Signals & Systems, Introduction to Computer Aided Digital Design, Programming Language Design and Processing, Introduction to Computer Architecture, Analysis and Design of Digital Circuits


WORK EXPERIENCE

Silicon Möbius, Inc.
Software Engineer, September 2002-February 2003, Durham, NC
Silicon Möbius was a startup company founded for the purpose of commercializing the PipeRench architecture from CMU. I was responsible for the language and compiler used to program the chips we were developing. More information on the PipeRench project is avaiable at http://www.ece.cmu.edu/research/piperench.
Recommendation available from Brian Van Essen (vanessen@alumni.cmu.edu).
Chameleon Systems, Inc.
Software Engineer, June 2001-August 2002, San Jose, CA
Chameleon was building a computer architecture with a two dimensional grid of simple computational elements. I assisted with the design and implemented a piece of software that takes a dataflow graph as input and applies some transformations to make the computation fit within the constraints of the architecture. The core of that software (designed by Eylon Caspi) is an iterative algorithm that performs a constrained retiming of the graph and a simulated annealing place and route.
Recommendation available from Mossadeq Mahmood (mahmood@cmln.com).
Carnegie Mellon University
Research Assistant, June 2000-May 2001, Pittsburgh, PA
I worked for Herman Schmit in the reconfigurable computing lab within the Center for Electronic Design Automation. For the first half of the summer I fixed and designed CMOS digital circuit layouts for the PipeRench chip that was fabricated in September 2000. For the rest of the summer I debugged and modified the software interface to PipeRench and the Verilog description of PipeRench. During the subsequent school year I worked with Dr. Schmit and Benjamin Levine on extending the PipeRench work to address hybrid sequential-spatial computers.
Recommendation available from Herman Schmit (herman@ece.cmu.edu).


PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS

H. Schmit, B. Levine, and B. Ylvisaker, ``Queue Machines: Hardware Compilation in Hardware'', in IEEE Symposium on Field Programmable Custom Computing Machines (FCCM), April 2002.
Hybrid Architectures with a Single Transformable Executable (HASTE), given at the Decentralized Streaming Architectures research retreat hosted by André DeHon at the California Institute of Technology, January, 2004 (with Brian Van Essen).
Queue Machines, given at the Decentralized Streaming Architectures research retreat hosted by André DeHon at the California Institute of Technology, January, 2003 (with Ben Levine).


HONORS AND AWARDS

Departmental Research Assistant Fellowship, awarded by the Computer Science and Engineering department of the University of Washington.
College Honors from Carnegie Institute of Technology, awarded for the completion of an undergraduate honors research project.
Dean's list fall 1997, spring & fall 1999, spring & fall 2000, and spring 2001.
R.L. Stone Stein Memorial Scholarship, awarded by Carnegie Mellon University.
Bausch & Laumb Science Award.


TECHNICAL SKILLS

Computer languages I am familiar with in approximate order of proficiency: SML, Java, Verilog, C/C++, Haskell, Perl, Matlab, HTML, Javascript, VB, and Pascal.
Operating Systems I am familiar with: UNIX (Linux, Solaris), Mac OS X, Windows (3.1, 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP), and BeOS.