Alvin R. Lebeck Professor of Computer Science Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Core Faculty in Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Biographical Information

Alvin R. Lebeck is a Professor of Computer Science and of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University. He co-founded Phitonex in 2017 serving as Chairman until the end of 2020 when it was acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific. Lebeck's research interests span atoms to applications, with a foundation centered in computer architecture and systems. His recent work explores hardware acceleration of probabilistic algorithms and the design of systems at the confluence of datacenters and high-performance computing. His prior work exploring the architectural implications of DNA self-assembly as a fabrication method for future systems provided the foundation for the formation of Phitonex to develop and commercialize novel fluorescent labels for biomarker detection. In the area of memory systems, Lebeck led efforts in improving cache hierarchy performance, new cache coherence and consistency protocols, and tolerating memory latency. He co-led the effort to develop the first technique for an operating system to manage energy/power as a first-class resource and to develop main memory power management techniques.

Prof. Lebeck received the B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering (1989), and the M.S. (1991) and Ph.D. (1995) in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin---Madison. Lebeck is co-author on over 100 publications, received the best paper award at the 31st IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture and the 6th International Workshop on Network on Chip Architectures, and has had two papers in the IEEE Top Picks in Computer Architecture, and one Honorable mention. He is the recipient of a 1997 NSF CAREER Award, has received funding from NSF, DARPA, AFRL, Intel, Compaq, Microsoft, IBM, SRC, is a member of ACM, an IEEE Fellow, served as technical program chair for ASPLOS 2019, was the founding editor for Computer Architecture Today-the ACM SIGARCH Blog, and received the 2020 ACM SIGARCH Alan D. Berenbaum Distinguished Service Award.