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MARTIN BURTSCHER

Professor 2015-present, ECL, CS, TX State
Associate Professor 2010-2015, ECL, CS, TX State
Research Scientist 2007-2010, ISS, ICES, UT Austin
Assistant Professor 2000-2007, CSL, ECE, Cornell

PhD (2000), Computer Science, CU Boulder
MS (1996), Computer Science, ETH Zurich
BS (1994), Computer Science, ETH Zurich



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Martin's head shot

Recent Highlights
The call for papers for the first "Correct Data Compression" workshop is available at CoDaC'24.

We have 2 papers accepted at the 2024 Data Compression Conference! The first paper presents LICO, a very fast and effective algorithm for lossless image compression. The second paper describes a simple yet highly accurate ML approach to predict a well-compressing algorithm for a given input file.

We presented 3 papers at the 2023 SC supercomputing conference!

Martin is among The World's Top 2% Scientists according to a study by Stanford University. 20 of the about 1400 faculty members at Texas State University are on the list.

Short Biography
Martin Burtscher is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Texas State University. He received the BS/MS degree from ETH Zurich and the PhD degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Martin's current research focuses on the parallelization of graph algorithms and complex programs for GPUs as well as on the synthesis of high-speed lossy and lossless data-compression algorithms. He has co-authored about 125 peer-reviewed scientific publications, which have been cited over 6700 times. Martin is a distinguished member of the ACM and a senior member of the IEEE.

Current Research
High-Performance Computing (HPC): GPU computing, parallel algorithm design, data compression, graph analytics, algorithm synthesis, performance optimization, energy efficiency

The CS department at Texas State ranks in the top 35 nationally and the top 50 worldwide in HPC.

Efficient Computing Laboratory
Martin directs the Efficient Computing Laboratory (ECL). Its research goals are developing general strategies for parallelizing complex and irregular programs, creating techniques to automatically synthesize high-performance data-compression algorithms, and designing optimizations to improve performance and energy efficiency. Animations and more information are available here.

Faster computations and better algorithms can help save lives, solve health problems, increase safety, improve the environment, and keep us connected. At this point, parallelization is the primary way to make more powerful and energy-efficient computers possible. As we are reaching the limits of human ability, automatic synthesis is the most promising avenue for creating new and improved algorithms.

Projects
CIVIC (verification of irregular parallel programs) [NSF/CCF - SHF]
LC (high-speed lossy data compression framework) [DOE/ASCR - DRS]
PECOS (simulation of inductively coupled plasma torch) [DOE/NNSA - PSAAP III]

Publications
GPU computing (MST, SCC, GC, MIS, CC, recurrences, prefix scans, graph algorithms, n-body, TSP)
[SC'23b] [SC'23c] [MCHPC'22] [TOPC'22] [PDSEC'22] [SC'21] [PPoPP'20] [TOPC'18] [HPDC'18] [ASPLOS'18] [AGRP'16a] [AGRP'16b] [PLDI'16] [HPPAC'16] [HCW'16] [Cluster'15] [PDPTA'15] [GPGPU'15a] [GPGPU'15b] [GPCDP'14] [IISWC'14] [NAS'14] [SAC'14] [GPGPU'14] [HPCwire'14] [IPCCC'13] [PASA'13] [PDPTA'13] [IPDPS'13b] [GPGPU'13] [PPoPP'13] [IISWC'12] [PPoPP'12] [PDPTA'11b] [GPGPU'11] [GCG'11]
Parallel computing (parallelization, irregular programs, verification suite, tracing, race tolerance, HPC)
[SC'23a] [SC'22] [ISPASS'22] [PPoPP'21] [ICCAD'19] [Cluster'19] [ESPT'18] [EduHPC'18] [WOSET'18] [SIGCSE'15] [EduPDHPC'13] [IPDPS'13a] [ICS'12] [TC'12] [PPoPP'12] [PLDI'11] [LCPC'10] [PPoPP'10] [ISPASS'09] [PPoPP'09a] [PPoPP'09b] [LCPC'08] [EUROPAR'05] [PDPTA'05] [SC'04] [PDPTA'02]
Lossless data compression (floating-point data, execution traces, mobile data, JavaScript code)
[ESSA'24] [DCC'24a] [DCC'24b] [IA^3'22] [DCC'18] [ACCN'17] [SC'16] [SPACE'16] [ICCCN'15] [TC'14] [MASCOTS'13] [TC'11] [CASES'10] [WebApps'10] [DCC'10] [ICCD'09] [DCC'09] [TC'09] [DCC'07a] [DCC'07b] [CAN'06] [DCC'06] [TC'05] [CGO'05] [SIGMETRICS'04] [PACT'03]
Performance optimization, recommendation systems, classification, phase detection
[CVIU'15] [DMIN'14] [3DOR'14] [PDPTA'11a] [ISPASS'11] [SC'10] [JPCS'09] [TG'09] [ISPASS'08] [IISWC'06] [MICRO'04] [PLDI'02]
Prefetching and caching (multicore architectures, helper threading, 3D architectures)
[HPCC'15] [TACO'06] [PACT'06] [D&T'05] [PACT'05] [TECHCON'05] [MSP'05]
Computational brain-injury modeling (bioengineering, visualization, BIC)
[BIOCOMP'12] [BIOCOMP'11] [BIOCOMP'08] [MSV'07] [SBC'07] [MSV'06] [SBC'05] [METMBS'05] [SBC'03]
Value prediction (value predictors, energy/complexity efficient design, confidence estimators)
[WISA'06] [CAN'05] [WDDD'05] [CF'05] [VPW'04] [TC'02] [CAN'02] [ICCD'00] [DISS'00] [PACT'99] [JILP'99] [PFDC'98]

Software and Data
GPU code: ECL-MST (minimum spanning tree), ECL-SCC (strongly connected components), MPLG (compressed in-memory graphs), SFP (VLSI routing), ECL-APSP (all pairs shortest paths), graphB+ (signed social network balancing), ECL-MIS (maximal independent sets), ECL-GC (graph coloring), ECL-CC (connected components), PLR (linear recurrences), SAM (prefix sums), MPC and GFC (compression), TSP_GPU (TSP), ECL-BH (n-body), FSM_GA (finite state machines)
Energy/Performance: Bit-Flips (bit-flip minimization), K20Power (GPU power profiler), PerfExpert/AutoSCOPE (bottleneck diagnosis)
Lossless compression: LICO (image compression)
FP compression: FPcrush, SPDP (tool), SPDP (HDF5), MPC, GFC, gFPC, pFPC, FPC, DP data, SP data
Benchmark suites: Indigo2 (parallel benchmarks), Indigo (parallel microbenchmarks), LonestarGPU (irregular GPU code), Lonestar (irregular CPU code)
Parallelization systems: Parla (heterogeneous tasking system), ILCS (iterative local searches)
Sequence mining: CBBT (phase detection), patterns (frequent subsequences)
Trace compression: TCgen (compressor generator), VPC3 (compression algorithm)
Brain-injury modeling: TBI (model, BIC, animations)

Teaching Material
Lecture slides: Teaching modules (introduction to parallel programming for undergraduates)
Programming projects: Peachy assignments (computing a movie of zooming into a fractal)

Professional Activities
Committee Member: ASPLOS'25, IISWC'24, CoDaC'24, IISWC'23, DRBSD'23, ISCA'23, HPCA'23, DRBSD'22, IISWC'22, ISCA'22, IWBDR'21, DRBSD'21, MICRO'21, ISCA'21, ISPASS'21, DRBSD'20, IWBDR'20, DRBSD'19, GPGPU'19, DRBSD'18b, DRBSD'18a, GPGPU'18, PPoPP'18, DRBSD'17b, EuroPar'17, DRBSD'17a, GPGPU'17, PPoPP'17, EduHPC'16, GPGPU'16, Cluster'15, PLDI'15, PPoPP'15, PLDI'14, PPoPP'14, GPGPU'13, PPoPP'13, GPGPU'12, PPoPP'12, PACT'11, ICSEC'11, PLDI'11, HPCA'11, PPoPP'10, ISCA'09, PPoPP'09, IISWC'08, MSPC'06, IISWC'05, CGO'05, ICS'02
Workshops & Tutorials: TUES1, COT5, COT4, PET5, COT3, PET4, PET3, COT2, PET2, COT1, PET1, VPW2, VPW1
Distinguished Member of the ACM; Senior Member of the IEEE and IEEE CS; Member of the NCWIT

ECL members by spring lake ECL members on campus

Current ECL members
Martin Burtscher: Director
Anju Mongandampulath Akathoott: Parallel graph algorithms (Postdoc)
Noushin Azami: Parallel data compression (PhD)
Cameron Bradley: Graph pattern counting (PhD)
Brandon Burtchell: Adaptive data compression (PhD)
Alex Fallin: Lossy data compression (PhD)
Benila Jerald: GPU-based irregular codes (PhD)
Yiqian Liu: Verification benchmark suites (PhD)
Andrew Rodriguez: Low-energy data compression (PhD)
Avery Vanausdal: Parallel benchmarks (PhD)
Michael Lehmann: Lossy data compression (BS)
Mackenzie Toliver: Data compression (BS)

A few words from former ECL members
Kristi Belcher: undergraduate researcher [video]
Sindhu Devale: graduate researcher [video]
Andres Gonzalez: graduate researcher [video]
Sepideh Maleki: graduate researcher [video]
Arthi Nagarajan: graduate researcher [video]
Jarim Seo: graduate researcher [video]
Dean Terrell: undergraduate researcher [video]
Aarti Kothari: graduate researcher [video]

Former thesis/dissertation students
Ghadeer Alabandi: Parallel graph analytics (PhD'23)
Kian ORyan: Multi-GPU clustering (MS'23)
Kayla Wesley: Parallel LZ77 algorithm (MS'22)
Andres Gonzalez: Parallel TSP heuristic (MS'20)
Jarim Seo: Parallel MST generation (MS'20)
Aarti Kothari: Massively parallel routing (MS'20)
Isaac van Til: Parallel graph coloring (BS'20)
Arthi Nagarajan: Energy-efficient memory accesses (MS'17)
Jayadharini Jaiganesh: Fast connected-components algorithms (MS'17)
Sahar Azimi: GPU execution tracing and compression (MS'17)
Kristi Belcher: Multi-GPU execution of irregular codes (BS'16)
Sepideh Maleki: Generalizing prefix-sum computations (MS'16)
Sindhu Devale: Tracing of large-scale parallel programs (MS'16)
Farbod Hesaaraki: Unobtrusive real-time tracing of parallel programs (MS'15)
Molly O'Neil: Using GPUs to accelerate irregular programs (MS'15)
Saeed Taheri: Optimization suggestions for GPU programs (MS'14)
Hari Mukka: Data-compression algorithm synthesis (MS'14)
Paruj Ratanaworabhan: Automatic data-race tolerance (PhD'09)
Ilya Ganusov: Multi-core helper threading (PhD'07)

Former research-group members
Benito Juarez: Undergraduate Independent Study
Avery Vanausdal: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Rain Lawson: Graduate Research Assistant
Grant Smith: Undergraduate Independent Study
Patrick Parker: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Corbin Walters: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Shubhangi Mahajan: Independent Study
Rick Rodriguez: Undergraduate Independent Study
Sirichi Srisan: Independent Study
Grace Adams: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Alex Fallin: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Kameron Bush: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Navya Tulimilli: Graduate Research Assistant
Anthony Cortes: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Fernando Valdes: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Christopher Yanez: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Evan Powers: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Randy Cornell: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Dean Terrell: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Jared Coplin: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Steven Claggett: Undergraduate Research Assistant
James Edwards: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Annie Yang: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Kurstie Lenear: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Christopher Ramirez: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Bhavya Medishetty: Graduate Research Assistant
Peter Janovics: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Raghuveer Kolli: Graduate Research Assistant
Hassan Rabeti: Undergraduate/Graduate Research Assistant
Jim Shockey: Independent Study
Olalekan Sopeju: Graduate Research Assistant

Selected ECL-member highlights
NSF Fellowships ($138,000): Jared, Kristi, Molly
Outstanding thesis awards: Sepideh
Outstanding research awards: Jared, Molly, Sepideh
Best paper awards: Yiqian, Noushin
PhD positions at Texas State, U. of Oregon, UT Austin, U. of Utah
Industry positions at NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Samsung, Uber, USAA, Charles Schwab, etc.



ECL members at Italian Garden





Ghadeer's graduation


ECL members at Italian Garden


ECL members at TACC


ECL members at graduation


ECL members at dinner
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