Contact Info
Phone
(773) 702-6614
Office
Crerar 341

Henry Hoffmann is the Liew Family Chair for the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chicago. He received the President’s Award for Early Career Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2019. He was granted early tenure in 2018. He is a member of the ASPLOS Hall of Fame. At Chicago he leads the Self-aware computing group (or SEEC project) and conducts research on adaptive techniques for power, energy, accuracy, and performance management in computing systems. He received the DOE Early Career Award in 2015. He has spent the last 18 years working on multicore architectures and system software in both academia and industry.

He completed a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT where his research on self-aware computing was named one of ten “World Changing Ideas” by Scientific American in December 2011. He received his SM degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2003. As a Masters student he worked on MIT’s Raw processor, one of the first multicores.

Along with other members of the Raw team, he spent several years at Tilera Corporation, a startup which commercialized the Raw architecture and created one of the first manycores (Tilera was sold for $130M in 2014). His implementation of the BDTI Communications Benchmark (OFDM) on Tilera’s 64-core TILE64 processor still has the highest certified performance of any programmable processor.

In 1999, he received his BS in Mathematical Sciences with highest honors and highest distinction from UNC Chapel Hill.

Research

Focus Areas: Self-aware & Adaptive Computing, Computer Systems, Computer Architecture, Embedded Systems

Modern computer systems have to meet goals in multiple — often competing — dimensions; e.g., high performance and low energy consumption. This creates a great burden on programmers who must be experts in both their application domain and in the myriad system issues that affect goals like power, energy, reliability, performance, and more. To alleviate this burden, I study ways to build self-aware computing systems that understand high-level goals and automatically adapt their behavior to meet those goals optimally. This is interdisciplinary work covering traditional areas, like operating systems and computer architecture, as well as new areas, like control theory and machine learning applied to computer system management and optimization.

Research

AI & Machine Learning

Foundations and applications of computer algorithms making data-centric models, predictions, and decisions

Systems, Architecture & Networking

Design and analysis of computing systems: cloud, edge, Internet, quantum, and beyond

Labs & Groups

Systems Group

A vibrant, collaborative research community with diverse, synergistic research interests spanning systems, programming languages and software engineering, software and hardware...

EPiQC (Enabling Practical-Scale Quantum Computing)

Fred Chong
A multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional NSF Expedition in Computing, led by UChicago, that spans quantum algorithms, software, and physical machines.

CERES Center for Unstoppable Computing

Andrew A. Chien
A dynamic community focused on reducing the fragility and complexity of computing systems, while also increasing their efficiency and lifetime.

Awards & Honors

2023
Election to the Samsung Hall of Fame
Implementation of BDTI wireless communication benchmark on tilera TILEPro64 and achieved highest performance on a programmable processor
2021
IEEE micro top picks honorable mention for ISCA
2018
IEEE micro top picks honorable mention for ASPLOS
Granted early tenure by the University of Chicago
2015
DOE early career research program

News & Events

UChicago CS News

UChicago CS Chair, Faculty, and Students Inducted Into Samsung Hall Of Fame For Identifying Vulnerability In SmartTVs

Oct 30, 2023
UChicago CS News

Hank Hoffmann Named New Chair For The University of Chicago’s Department of Computer Science

Aug 28, 2023
UChicago CS News

New UpDown Project Uses “Intelligent Data Movement” to Accelerate Graph Analytics

Oct 21, 2022
UChicago CS News

ScaleStuds Project Receives $5 Million to Build Foundations for Massive Computation

Nov 19, 2021
UChicago CS News

2011 Paper Co-Authored by Prof. Hank Hoffmann Receives Test of Time Honor

Aug 09, 2021
UChicago CS News

PhD Student Chengcheng Wan Receives Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant

Jun 23, 2021
UChicago CS News

Edge Computing Strategy from UChicago CS Student Wins RTAS Outstanding Paper

Jun 17, 2021
UChicago CS News

UChicago-Developed Compiler Makes Quantum Computers 2x Faster

Oct 10, 2019
UChicago CS News

Associate Professor Henry Hoffmann Receives Presidential Early Career Award

Jul 09, 2019
UChicago CS News

Divide And Conquer Algorithm Could Unlock More Efficient Parallel Computing

Nov 28, 2018
UChicago CS News

UChicago CS Makes a Splash at ASPLOS 2018

Mar 02, 2018
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