Jennifer Volk

Ph.D. candidate

UC Santa Barbara, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Contact: jevolk [at] ucsb [dot] edu

Researcher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Laboratory

Contact: volk [at] mit [dot] edu

Visiting Scholar

University of Michigan, Computer Science and Engineering

Contact: jevolk [at] umich [dot] edu

About.

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara; a researcher at MIT Lincoln Lab; and a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan. My interests center on circuit design, but extend down to materials and up to computer architecture. For an up-to-date list of publications, please take a look at my publications page and scholar profile. I am on the job market this year - if you are interested in what I do, please feel free to reach out.

My work aims to exploit circuit and device quirks in emerging technologies to build highly efficient architectures. Using superconductor electronics as a timely case study (due to their ability to provide energy-efficient and high-performance systems for applications ranging from datacenter, neuromorphic, and quantum computing to space, satellite, and sensing systems), I focus on building ties between computer architecture and devices by defining simple electrical abstractions and designing scalable circuit components. In doing so, I firstly create pathways for direct translation between circuits and computer architecture, allowing computer architects to make well-informed decisions without the need for analog design know-how; and secondly enable circuit designers to have greater control over architectural metrics such as power consumption, area, delay, and robustness. As such, I take inspiration from materials science and physics, and import a low-level understanding of devices to higher levels of abstraction.

Furthermore, I am committed to excellence and to creating safe spaces for collaboration and learning everywhere I go. I believe wholeheartedly that a culture centered on these principles starts at community engagement and betterment; you can find a few ways in which I am engaged in my community on my activities page.

Announcements.

๐Ÿ“š I will give a seminar talk during my visit to UCSC on 3/1/24. Feel free to stop by and say hello!

๐Ÿ“š I will visit the ECE Department at CMU on 2/12-2/13/24. See you in Pittsburgh!

๐Ÿ“š Looking forward to giving a seminar talk at U. Rochester on 2/1/24!

๐Ÿ’ฅ I will be attending EECS Rising Stars this year at Georgia Tech. See you there!

Race logic primitives and accelerators in SFQ5ee.

Cell abutment and high fan-out with Ic ranking in SFQ5ee.