Inaugural Lecture: Professor Zheng Wang, School of Computing
- Date: Wednesday 3 July 2024, 15:45 – 18:00
- Location: Electronic and Electrical Engineering
- Type: Inaugural Lecture
- Cost: Free
Join us for our next Inaugural Lecture on 3 July as we welcome Zheng Wang, Professor of Intelligent Software Technology at the School of Computing.
An inaugural lecture is a significant milestone in any academic’s career, recognising their promotion to Professor. It also offers an opportunity for our new professorial colleagues to showcase their work and innovative research with a broad audience, including members of the public, family, friends, and colleagues.
This lecture is part of a new series across the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, celebrating those who have joined the University to offer ever greater teaching, research, and expertise across our eight Schools.
About this lecture
Professor Wang’s lecture, “21st Century Compiler Technology”, will present a roadmap for modernising compiler technology with AI.
A compiler is an important piece of software that translates the high-level source code to low-level machine instructions to run on the underlying hardware. It ensures our software operates at its best so that our computers and gadgets respond instantly, provide faster services, enhance our daily experiences, and minimise the environmental footprint when using these devices.
Despite their significance, compilers have changed little over the past few decades. They are constrained by myriad sub-optimal choices initially devised to work around the constraints of computers designed 40 years ago. Like trying to run a modern car on outdated fuel, this software-hardware mismatch causes inefficiencies and slows down our digital world, affecting everything from scientific discoveries to business innovations. It is high time to modernise compiler technology.
In this talk, Professor Wang will present some of the award-winning work conducted by his group, which uses machine learning to make it easier to build efficient and reliable compilers for modern computing hardware. Their work showcases how machine learning can massively reduce human involvement in developing optimising compilers, enabling compilers to catch up with the ever-changing hardware and helping identify human errors during compiler development.
About our speaker
Zheng Wang, Professor of Intelligent Software Technology at the School of Computing, is internationally known for his work in incorporating machine learning into compilation technology. His research has been successfully transferred into industry (ARM, IBM, Meta, TurinTech AI, Tencent, Alibaba, and Codasip) and the LLVM open-source compiler. He has received seven best paper awards from premier international conferences received the prestigious Test-of-Time award in CGO 2024. He was named among the Elsevier and Stanford World’s Top 2% Scientists between 2020 and 2023.
Book your place
The lecture will take place in the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Leeds, with arrival and registration from 3.45pm in the foyer, and the lecture commencing at 4pm in the Rhodes Lecture Theatre G.55. This will be followed by a drinks reception in the Bragg Atrium from 5pm.
Booking is required to attend this event – you can do so at our dedicated ticket portal.