Professor Hank Hoffmann has been appointed Chair for the Department of Computer Science be
ginning September 1, 2023. He will continue to serve over the next three years, building o
n the work laid out by the department’s current Liew Family Chair, Mike Franklin. In respo
nse to the announcement, Franklin wrote that he “couldn’t be more pleased about this choic
e".Hoffmann completed his 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 Scien
tific American in December 2011. He received his SM degree in Electrical Engineering and C
omputer Science from MIT in 2003. As a Masters student he worked on MIT’s Raw processor, o
ne of the first multicores. Along with other members of the Raw team, he spent several yea
rs 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 hi
ghest certified performance of any programmable processor.In 2015, Hoffmann received the D
OE Early Career Award. He was granted early tenure in 2018, and went on to receive the Pre
sident’s Award for Early Career Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2019. Additionally, h
e is a member of the ASPLOS Hall of Fame and the Samsung Smart TV, Audio, and Displays Hal
l of Fame. At the University of Chicago he leads the Self-aware computing group (or SEEC p
roject) and conducts research on adaptive techniques for power, energy, accuracy, and perf
ormance management in computing systems.“I hope to continue the great work the department
has done over the last decade," said Hoffmann. “Internally, I want this to continue to be
a place where all our staff, students, postdocs, and faculty feel proud to work and empowe
red to achieve their best. Externally, I hope to continue to raise our stature and standin
g in the community."The department has been rapidly expanding since 2017, including the ad
dition of 37 faculty members with specialties in rising research areas such as data scienc
e, security, machine learning and artificial intelligence, visual computing, and human-com
puter interaction.“I joined this department 10 years ago because it presented a unique opp
ortunity to be part of the team that expanded the department’s historical strength in theo
ry into new areas. I’ve been amazed at the growth and expansion since I got here and am no
w extremely humbled that I was chosen to steward the department through its next phase."