The Inaugural Distinguished College of Computing Professor
Armando Solar-Lezama has been appointed as the first Distinguished College of Computing Professor at the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, effective from July 1. This prestigious position was generously endowed by Professor Jae S. Lim of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and has been awarded to Solar-Lezama in recognition of his exceptional contributions and leadership in the field.
The appointment of Solar-Lezama has been welcomed by Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and the Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Huttenlocher expresses his appreciation to Professor Lim for creating this new chair within the college, allowing MIT to acknowledge the accomplishments of its faculty.
Armando Solar-Lezama: Leader in Computer-Aided Programming
Armando Solar-Lezama is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and leads the Computer-Aided Programming Group at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). His group focuses on program synthesis, a research area at the intersection of programming systems and artificial intelligence. Their work involves developing new analysis techniques, automated reasoning mechanisms, and programming models that automate complex aspects of programming.
Having been a member of the EECS faculty since 2008, Solar-Lezama’s interest lies in software synthesis and its applications in specific program domains, such as high-performance computing. He discovered this niche during his time as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. His thesis project, a language called Sketch, treats program synthesis as a search problem, using algorithms to streamline the search space for faster and more efficient results. Program synthesis research has since developed into an active and expanding field.