Alexia Massalin
 | This biography of a living person relies too much on references to primary sources. (September 2016) |
Alexia Massalin | |
|---|---|
| Born | Henry Massalin January 1, 1962 |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | Cooper Union School of Engineering, B.E. M.E., 1984 Columbia University, Ph.D., computer science, 1992 |
| Known for | Superoptimization |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Operating systems, optimizing compilers |
| Institutions | MicroUnity Systems Engineering, Inc. |
| Thesis | Synthesis: An Efficient Implementation of Fundamental Operating System Services (1992) |
| Doctoral advisor | Calton Pu |
Alexia Massalin (formerly Henry Massalin) is an American computer scientist and programmer. She pioneered the concept of superoptimization,[1][2] and designed the Synthesis kernel, a small kernel with a Unix compatibility layer that makes heavy use of self-modifying code for efficiency.[3][4]
Life and career
[edit | edit source]After high school, she was given a scholarship to the Cooper Union School of Engineering in Manhattan, where she obtained a bachelor's and master's degree.[5][2] She went to obtain her Ph.D. in computer science from Columbia University in 1992, studying under professor Calton Pu.
In the 1980s she worked for Philon Inc., a New York start up specializing in optimizing compilers. In October 1992, Massalin joined MicroUnity as a research scientist, where she became responsible for signal-processing modules and software architecture.[5]
Synthesis
[edit | edit source]Massalin's first breakthrough product came while studying at Columbia. Massalin developed Synthesis, an operating system kernel that allocated resources, ran security and low-level hardware interfaces, and created executable code to improve performance.[2] Synthesis optimized critical operating system code using run-time information, which was a new insight previously thought impractical.[2] To support Synthesis, Massalin invented object-like data structures called Quajects, which contain both data and code information.[4]
Massalin is still working on broadband microprocessors.[citation needed]
Personal life
[edit | edit source]Her parents were Croatian refugees from Trieste. In the 1940s, they moved to Astoria, Queens, New York, where her father became a construction worker.[2]
In a 1996 article in Wired magazine, the author Gary Andrew Poole said she "could be the Einstein of our time."[2] She was well known for offering piggyback rides to people she met, which included notable computer scientists such as Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, and artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky.[6]
References
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