Nathan Beckmann

Associate Professor in the
Computer Science Department and
ECE Department (by courtesy)
at Carnegie Mellon University

9021 Gates-Hillman Center
my last name@cs.cmu.edu

CORGi Group
Curriculum Vitae
Google Scholar

I am an associate professor (w/out indefinite tenure) in the Computer Science Department and (by courtesy) the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Carnegie Mellon University, leading the CORGi research group.

I am also co-founder and Chief Scientist at Efficient Computer Company, where I am currently on leave. We're hiring!

Research

I am interested in computer systems, computer architecture, and performance modeling. Please see the CORGi group web page for the projects I am currently working on, my current students, recent news, and more!

Teaching

Spring 2024: 15-213 Introduction to Computer Systems
Fall 2023: 15-740 Computer Architecture
Fall 2022: 15-740 Computer Architecture
Spring 2022: 15-418 Parallel Computer Architecture and Programming
Fall 2021: 15-740 Computer Architecture
Spring 2021: 15-418 Parallel Computer Architecture and Programming
Fall 2020: 15-740 Computer Architecture
Spring 2020: 15-418 Parallel Computer Architecture and Programming
Fall 2019: 15-740 Computer Architecture
Spring 2019: 15-418 Parallel Computer Architecture and Programming
Fall 2018: 15-740 Computer Architecture
Spring 2018: 15-740 Computer Architecture
Spring 2017: 15-740 Computer Architecture

Service

Program Committees: ISCA'24, IEEE Micro Top Picks '23, ASPLOS'23, HPCA'23, SIGMETRICS/Performance'22, FAST'22, HPCA'22, MICRO'21, ISCA'21, MICRO'20, ISCA'20, MICRO'19, ISCA'19, MICRO'18, and MICRO'17.
External Review Committee: ISPASS'20, HPCA'19, ASPLOS'19, and ISCA'17.
NSF Panel Member in 2019 and 2018.

Bio

My PhD (2012-2015) was advised by Daniel Sanchez at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). I stayed for a one-year postdoc with Daniel (2015-2016). My PhD thesis, Design and Analysis of Spatially-Partitioned Shared Caches, received the 2015 Sprowls Doctoral Thesis Prize for the "best PhD thesis in computer science at MIT". This work introduced the software-defined cache, a new abstraction to manage data placement in large multicores to dramatically reduce data movement.

Before that, I worked in Anant Agarwal's group on fos, a distributed operating system for multicore and clouds (2008-2011). After Anant joined edX full-time, I briefly worked with Frans Kaashoek and Nickolai Zeldovich in the PDOS group (2011-2012). A long time ago, I also worked on Graphite, a distributed multicore simulator. My other interests include math and cryptography.

I received my masters degree in 2010 from MIT. My thesis, "Distributed Naming in a Factored Operating System", won the William A. Martin Memorial Thesis Award for an outstanding Master's thesis. I got my Bachelors of Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. I graduated summa cum laude in Computer Science and Mathematics of Computation and was honored as the Bachelor of the Year (2008) in Computer Science.

Personal News (yy/mm/dd)

For research news, please see the CORGi group web page for the accomplishments of my amazing students!

• 24/2/20: I am honored to be named a Sloan Research Fellow. You can read my statement here.
• 24/2/1: Honored to serve as an opponent for a PhD defense at NTNU. Congratulations to Dr. Fatemeh Ghasemi!
• 24/1/31: Gave a talk on Computers Can Be General-Purpose and Energy-Efficient Too at a Workshop on Energy-Efficiency for the Internet of Things and Beyond @ NTNU. Thanks to Magnus Jahre for the invitation.
• 24/1/24: I will be presenting a poster at TinyML Summit in April '24 on Decade-Long On-Device AI on a AA Battery based on our work at Efficient Computer.
• 23/10/31: I am now a member of the SIGMICRO Hall of Fame.
• 23/7/1: I am now an associate professor without tenure.
• 23/5/12: Very proud to hood Graham Gobieski, my first PhD graduate!
• 23/1/1: I am on leave at my startup, but still advising my wonderful PhD students.
• 22/5/20: Visited Georgia Tech and gave the Re-Thinking... talk.
• 22/5/16: Visited MIT and gave the Re-Thinking... talk.
• 22/5/10: Visited Stanford and gave the Re-Thinking... talk.
• 22/5/4: Visited Cornell and gave the Re-Thinking... talk.
• 22/4/27: Visited the University of Washington and gave a talk on Re-Thinking the Hardware-Software Interface for Data-Centric Systems.
• 22/4/2: Gave a talk at the 2nd Principle of Memory Hierarchy Optimization workshop (PMHO @ PPOPP).
• 21/3/10: I am a Google Research Scholar. Thanks Google! :)
• 21/2/28: Gave a talk at the Principles of Memory Hierarchy Optimization workshop (PMHO @ PPOPP).
• 20/6/2: Appeared on the Memory Systems panel at ISCA 2020.
• 19/6/23: Gave a talk on Learning Better Caching Policies Online at ML for Systems @ISCA'19.
• 19/6/21: Received the CAREER award. Thank you NSF!
• 19/5/1: Visited Stanford and gave a talk on Intelligence Beyond the Edge to the DAWN group.
• 19/2/8: Brought Baphomet home!
• 18/9/19: Gave a talk Teaching An Old Cache New Tricks: Learning Better Policies Online at Google in Sunnyvale.
• 18/3/12: Arya turned six years old!
• 17/2/23: I am now an assistant professor (by courtesy) in ECE.
• 17/1/1: I have officially joined CMU's Computer Science Department. Hooray!

Fun stuff