I am actively recruiting highly motivated students who are ready to take on ambitious challenges. If you are interested in the research on customizable computing, please email me (zhenman [at] umn [dot] edu) your CV, transcript, English test results, and research interests, with the following subject: [PhD] Name+Major+School. Note Master's students in US are typically NOT funded. Students with background in hardware acceleration and architecture, compilation and automation tools, as well as agentic systems, for killer applications such as large AI models, big data analytics, sparsity-aware computation, and fully homomorphic encryption, are highly encouraged to apply.

Before emailing me, please explore my website to get an overview of our research, and make sure you meet the Academic and English Language requirements. !!Please DO NOT phone me!!

• Why UMN?
• Minneapolis-St. Paul Virtual Tour
• UMN Ranking and Reputation
• UMN Research Statistics
• UMN ECE Ranking

If you are good at two or more of the following skills, we should talk.

• Strong general coding skills (C, C++, Java, etc.)
• FPGA hardware design experience (Verilog/VHDL/Chisel, HLS C/C++/OpenCL)
• GPU development (CUDA, OpenCL)
• Hardware simulators and modeling (gem5, GEMS, Multi2Sim, Sniper, etc.)
• Compiler implementation (LLVM, Clang, ROSE, etc.)
• System implementation (Apache Spark, Hadoop, YARN, Mesos, other runtime systems)
• Application optimization (AI, big data analytics, HPC, sparsity-aware computation, fully homomorphic encryption, etc.) on FPGA, GPU, or ASIC

• Important Information for PhD Applicants
• Program and admission FAQs
• Admitted students typically have a GPA of 3.4 and above, with strong research experience considered as an exception
• Minimum English Language Proficiency
• Recommended English Language Proficiency (ELP 2)
• GRE is not required