Research

Impact Areas

Lead

Costis Daskalakis

Erik Demaine

Michael Goemans

Piotr Indyk

David Karger

Jonathan Kelner

Tom Leighton

Charles E. Leiserson

Aleksander Madry

Ankur Moitra

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Nir Shavit

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Community of Research

Applied Machine Learning Community of Research

This CoR brings together researchers at CSAIL working across a broad swath of application domains. Within these lie novel and challenging machine learning problems serving science, social science and computer science.

Una-May O'Reilly

Leads

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Areas

Computational Biology

Impact Areas

Health Care

Lead

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Center

Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML)

The MIT Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML) works towards creating AI systems that are robust, reliable and safe for real-world deployment.

Aleksander Madry

Leads

Aleksander Madry

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Aleksander Madry

Research Group

Complexity Theory Group

Our interests span quantum complexity theory, barriers to solving P versus NP, theoretical computer science with a focus on probabilistically checkable proofs (PCP), pseudo-randomness, coding theory, and algorithms.

Leads

Shafi Goldwasser

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Michael Sipser

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Shafi Goldwasser

Ronitt Rubinfeld

Michael Sipser

Ryan Williams

Virginia Vassilevska Williams

Research Group

Computation Structures Group

Our mission is fostering the creation and development of high-performance, reliable and secure computing systems that are easy to interact with.

+21

Leads

Srini Devadas

Daniel Sanchez

Armando Solar-Lezama

Arvind

Research Areas

Computer Architecture

Impact Areas

Lead

Srini Devadas

Daniel Sanchez

Armando Solar-Lezama

Arvind

+21

Community of Research

Computing & Society Community of Research

This community is interested in understanding and affecting the interaction between computing systems and society through engineering, computer science and public policy research, education, and public engagement.

Daniel Weitzner

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Weitzner

Research Group

Cryptography and Information Security Group

We seek to develop techniques for securing tomorrow's global information infrastructure by exploring theoretical foundations, near-term practical applications, and long-range speculative research.

Leads

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Ronald Rivest

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Butler Lampson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Ronald Rivest

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Butler Lampson

Research Group

Data Systems Group

We conduct research on all areas of database systems and information management.

+15

Leads

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Tim Kraska

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Tim Kraska

+15

Research Group

Decentralized Information Group

We are investigating decentralized technologies that affect social change.

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Leads

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

Tim Berners-Lee

Research Group

Haystack Group

We are an interdisciplinary group of researchers blending approaches from human-computer interaction, social computing, databases, information management, and databases.

Lea Verou

David Karger

Leads

David Karger

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

David Karger

Lea Verou

David Karger

Community of Research

Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research

The focus of the HCI CoR is inventing new systems and technology that lie at the interface between people and computation, and understanding their design, implementation, and societal impact.

Stefanie Mueller

Leads

Stefanie Mueller

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Entertainment

Manufacturing

Lead

Stefanie Mueller

Research Group

Lecturers

Lecturers in CSAIL

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Research Group

MIT App Inventor

MIT App Inventor is an intuitive, visual programming environment that allows everyone – even children – to build fully functional apps for smartphones and tablets.

Hal Abelson

Leads

Hal Abelson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Hal Abelson

Research Group

Multicore Algorithmics

We develop techniques for designing, implementing, and reasoning about multiprocessor algorithms, in particular concurrent data structures for multicore machines and the mathematical foundations of the computation models that govern their behavior.

Nir Shavit

Leads

Nir Shavit

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Energy

Lead

Nir Shavit

Research Group

Multimodal Understanding Group

Our objective is to build techniques, software, and hardware that enable natural interaction with
computation.

Randall Davis

Leads

Randall Davis

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Randall Davis

Research Group

Programming Languages and Software Engineering

We research programming languages, software engineering, and related work in human-computer interaction.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Research Group

Quantum Information Science Group

Our research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers, and computational complexity theory more generally.

Peter Shor

Leads

Peter Shor

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Energy

Lead

Peter Shor

Research Group

Software Design Group

Our goal is to find better ways to make software, and ways to make software better.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Jackson

Research Group

Sussman Lab

We focus on understanding the problem-solving strategies used by scientists and engineers, with the goals of automating parts of the process and formalizing educational methods.

Gerald Sussman

Leads

Gerald Sussman

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Manufacturing

Lead

Gerald Sussman

Community of Research

Systems Community of Research

The Systems CoR is focused on building and investigating large-scale software systems that power modern computers, phones, data centers, and networks, including operating systems, the Internet, wireless networks, databases, and other software infrastructure.

+21

Sam Madden

Leads

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Computer Architecture

Impact Areas

Lead

Sam Madden

+21

Sam Madden

Community of Research

Theory of Computation Community of Research

The goal of the Theory of Computation CoR is to study the fundamental strengths and limits of computation as well as how these interact with mathematics, computer science, and other disciplines.

+20

Costis Daskalakis

Leads

Costis Daskalakis

Research Areas

Computational Biology

Impact Areas

Lead

Costis Daskalakis

+20

Costis Daskalakis

Research Group

Theory of Distributed Systems Group

We work on a wide range of problems in distributed computing theory. We study algorithms and lower bounds for typical problems that arise in distributed systems---like resource allocation, implementing shared memory abstractions, and reliable communication.

Nancy Lynch

Leads

Nancy Lynch

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Nancy Lynch

Research Group

Usable Programming Group

We design and study systems that improve the learnability, efficiency, and safety of software development.

Rob Miller

Leads

Rob Miller

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Rob Miller

Community of Research

Vertical AI Community of Research

This CoR takes a unified approach to cover the full range of research areas required for success in artificial intelligence, including hardware, foundations, software systems, and applications.

Martin Rinard

Leads

Martin Rinard

Research Areas

Learning and Intelligent Systems

Impact Areas

Lead

Martin Rinard

14 Project Results

Project

Active Learning of Models for Planning

Machine Learning

We aim to develop a systematic framework for robots to build models of the world and to use these to make effective and safe choices of actions to take in complex scenarios.

Leslie Kaelbling

Tomas Lozano-Perez

Leads

Leslie Kaelbling

Tomas Lozano-Perez

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Entertainment

Leslie Kaelbling

Tomas Lozano-Perez

Project

Alloy

Software Design Group

Alloy is a language for describing structures and a tool for exploring them. It has been used in a wide range of applications from finding holes in security mechanisms to designing telephone switching networks. Hundreds of projects have used Alloy for design analysis, for verification, for simulation, and as a backend for many other kinds of analysis and synthesis tools, and Alloy is currently being taught in courses worldwide.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Learning and Intelligent Systems

Impact Areas

Daniel Jackson

Project

Bayesian Optimization for Global Optimization of Expensive Black-box Functions

Machine Learning

We study the fundamentals of Bayesian optimization and develop efficient Bayesian optimization methods for global optimization of expensive black-box functions originated from a range of different applications.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Data Civilizer

Data Systems Group

Data scientists universally report that they spend at least 80% of their time finding data sets of interest, accessing them, cleaning them and assembling them into a unified whole.

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Leads

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Cryptography and Information Security Group

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Project

Data Garbling: Computing on Encrypted Data

We are investigating the limits of computing on encrypted data, with a focus on the private outsourcing of computation over sensitive data.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Determining Wikipedia's Influence on Science

Supertech Research Group

Wikipedia is one of the most widely accessed encyclopedia sites in the world, including by scientists. Our project aims to investigate just how far Wikipedia’s influence goes in shaping science.

Neil Thompson

Charles E. Leiserson

Leads

Neil Thompson

Charles E. Leiserson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Distributed Robotics Laboratory

Neil Thompson

Charles E. Leiserson

Project

Distributed Robot Garden

The robot garden provides an aesthetically pleasing educational platform that can visualize computer science concepts and encourage young students to pursue programming and robotics.

Leads

Joseph DelPreto

Lindsay Sanneman

Daniela Rus

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Programming Languages & Verification

Entertainment

Project

Kami: A Modular Deductive Hardware Verification Platform

A framework to support implementing, specifying, verifying, and compiling hardware designs, modularly

Adam Chlipala

Leads

Adam Chlipala

Research Areas

Computer Architecture

Impact Areas

Adam Chlipala

Project

Privacy-Preserving Decentralized Optimization

To enable privacy preservation in decentralized optimization, differential privacy is the most commonly used approach. However, under such scenario, the trade-off between accuracy (even efficiency) and privacy is inevitable. In this project, distributed numerical optimization scheme incorporated with lightweight cryptographic information sharing are explored. The affect on the convergence rate from network topology is considered.

Hanshen Xiao

Leads

Hanshen Xiao

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Hanshen Xiao

Project

Random Graph with Applications in MPC

To explore how randomness in connectivity can improve the performance of secure multi-party computation (MPC) and the properties of communication graph to support MPC.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Reliable and Robust Machine Learning

We work towards a principled understanding of the current machine learning toolkit and making this toolkit be robust and reliable.

Aleksander Madry

Leads

Aleksander Madry

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Distributed Robotics Laboratory

Aleksander Madry

Project

Robot Compiler

The Robot Compiler allows non-engineering users to rapidly fabricate customized robots, facilitating the proliferation of robots in everyday life. It thereby marks an important step towards the realization of personal robots that have captured imaginations for decades.

Leads

Joseph DelPreto

Andrew Spielberg

Daniela Rus

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Security by Design for Cyberphysical Systems

Software Design Group

An approach to reducing risks of attack on cyberphysical infrastructure (such as water purification plants and electric grids) with new software design and analysis techniques.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Decentralized Information Group

Daniel Jackson

Project

Solid: Social Linked Data

Cognitive AI Community of Research

Solid aims to radically change the way Web applications work today, resulting in true data ownership as well as improved privacy.

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

Leads

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Health Care

Simit: A Language for Computing on Sparse Systems

Tim Berners-Lee

Lalana Kagal

21 People Results

PI
Core/Dual

Saman Amarasinghe

Professor

Compilers, architectures, software engineering

E saman@csail.mit.edu

T 253-8879

Lead

Commit Group

Tiramisu Compiler

Member

Taco: The Tensor Algebra Compiler

Halide

OpenTuner: An Extensible Framework for Program Autotuning

Program Performance Prediction with Deep Learning

Programming Systems Group

Compilers, architectures, software engineering

PI
Core/Dual

Michael Carbin

Assistant Professor

Programming languages and systems.

E mcarbin@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5881

Lead

The Lottery Ticket Hypothesis

Member

Programming with spaces

Program Performance Prediction with Deep Learning

Applied Machine Learning Community of Research

FSCQ: File-system verification

Programming languages and systems.

Tej Chajed

Graduate Student

PhD student in systems

E tchajed@csail.mit.edu

RM 32-G978B

Lead

Perennial

Member

Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems

PhD student in systems

PI
Core/Dual

Adam Chlipala

Associate Professor

Programming languages, formal methods, security & privacy, systems

E adamc@csail.mit.edu

T 324-8439

Lead

Kami: A Modular Deductive Hardware Verification Platform

Compilation Using Correct-by-Construction Program Synthesis

Programming Languages & Verification

Hemiola: Structural Design and Proof of Cache-Coherence Protocols

Member

Compilation Using Correct-by-Construction Program Synthesis

Programming with spaces

FSCQ: File-system verification

Programming languages, formal methods, security & privacy, systems

PI
Core/Dual

Fredo Durand

Professor

Vision, graphics, computational photography

E fredo@csail.mit.edu

T 253-7223

Lead

Computer Graphics Group

Computational Understanding of Visualizations and Graphic Designs

Vision Group

Member

Computational Bounce Flash for Indoor Portraits

Halide

Visual Computing Community of Research

Vision, graphics, computational photography

PI
Core/Dual

Shafi Goldwasser

Professor

Theory, cryptography, cybersecurity, complexity

E shafi@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5914

Lead

Cryptography and Information Security Group

Complexity Theory Group

Member

Computational Connectomics Group

Theory, cryptography, cybersecurity, complexity

PI
Core/Dual

Daniel Jackson

Professor

Software design, programming, systems

E dnj@csail.mit.edu

T 258-8471

Lead

Rethinking Software Design

Software Design Group

Gitless: a simple version control system built on top of Git

Déjà Vu: Constructing Apps from Concepts

Security by Design for Cyberphysical Systems

Poirot: Secure Protocol Implementation by Design

An Interlock for Self Driving Cars

Alloy

Wildcard

Member

Espalier

Wildcard

Software design, programming, systems

PI
Core/Dual

David Karger

Professor

Helping people manage information

E karger@csail.mit.edu

T 258-6167

Lead

Haystack Group

Mavo: Creating Interactive Data-Driven Web Applications by Authoring HTML

Wikum: Bridging Discussion Systems and Wikis with Collective Summarization

Squadbox: Combating Online Harassment using Friendsourced Moderation

Eyebrowse: Social and Public Web Browsing

Talkademic: Motivating Online Academic Discourse

Member

Helping people manage information

PI
Core/Dual

Charles E. Leiserson

Professor

Algorithms, parallel computing, performance engineering

E cel@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5833

Lead

Supertech Research Group

Performance Engineering of Cache Profilers

CilkPride

A Simplified and Extensible Cilk Runtime for Research

Determining Wikipedia's Influence on Science

Tapir

Member

Algorithms, parallel computing, performance engineering

Henry Lieberman

Research Scientist

Henry Lieberman is a Research Scientist at MIT CSAIL, in AI and HCI.

E lieber@MEDIA.MIT.EDU

Henry Lieberman is a Research Scientist at MIT CSAIL, in AI and HCI.

PI
Core/Dual

Albert R. Meyer

Professor Emeritus

Programming languages, theory, complexity, online education

E meyer@csail.mit.edu

T 253-6024

Programming languages, theory, complexity, online education

PI
Core/Dual

Rob Miller

Professor

Human-computer interaction, online education, software development

E rcm@csail.mit.edu

T 324-6028

Lead

Wait-learning: Intelligent Systems for Making Productive Use of Wait Time

Usable Programming Group

CilkPride

Member

Human-computer interaction, online education, software development

PI
Core/Dual

Martin Rinard

Professor

Systems, programming languages and verification

E rinard@csail.mit.edu

T 258-6922

Lead

Member

Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML)

Cryptography and Information Security Group

Systems, programming languages and verification

PI
Core/Dual

Ronald Rivest

Institute Professor

Cryptography, cybersecurity, RSA public-key encryption

E rivest@mit.edu

T 253-5880

Lead

Member

Risk-aware Network Resource Allocation

Cryptography, cybersecurity, RSA public-key encryption

PI
Core/Dual

Howard Shrobe

Principal Research Scientist

Architectures, cybersecurity, web policy

E hes@csail.mit.edu

T 253-7877

Lead

RADMAX

Automated Attack Tree Generation for Critical Infrastructure

Securing IoT

Cognitive AI Community of Research

Artificial Social Intelligence for Successful Teams (ASIST)

Uhura: Personal Assistant that Manages Risk

Member

Architectures, cybersecurity, web policy

PI
Core/Dual

Armando Solar-Lezama

Associate Professor

Programming languages, software analysis

E asolar@csail.mit.edu

T 258-9727

Lead

Synquid: Synthesis From Liquid Types

Computer-Aided Programming

An Interlock for Self Driving Cars

Member

Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML)

Applied Machine Learning Community of Research

Programming languages, software analysis

PI
Core/Dual

Gerald Sussman

Professor

Artificial intelligence, supercomputers

E gjs@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5874

RM 32/ 32-G508/ G514

Lead

Sussman Lab

The Car Can Explain!

Internet Policy Research Initiative

Member

Cognitive AI Community of Research

Geometric Data Processing Group

Artificial intelligence, supercomputers

Yu Wang

Graduate Student

E wangyu9@mit.edu

RM 32-D475A

Member

Geometry and topology for scientific computing and shape analysis

PI
Core/Dual

Ryan Williams

Associate Professor

Theory, algorithms, complexity.

E rrw@mit.edu

Lead

Complexity Theory Group

Member