Mike He


I am a Ph.D. student at the Princeton Programming Languages Group advised by Prof. Aarti Gupta. I am broadly interested in programming languages, formal methods and compilers. My current research focuses on practical formal and semi-formal methods for distributed systems and agentic systems, and I am working with the P ecosystem for verifying and reasoning about distributed systems.

Before joining Princeton, I studied at the University of Washington, where I was privileged to work with Prof. Zachary Tatlock on equality saturation and its applications to machine learning compilers.

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Publications & Pre-prints

(*: Equal contribution)

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Application-Level Validation of Accelerator Designs Using a Formal Software/Hardware Interface
Bo-Yuan Huang*, Steven Lyubomirsky*, Yi Li, Mike He, Thierry Tambe, Gus Henry Smith, Akash Gaonkar, Vishal Canumalla, Gu-Yeon Wei, Aarti Gupta, Sharad Malik, Zachary Tatlock
ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems, 2024
Project PagePaper
@article{huang233la, 
	author = {Bo-Yuan Huang* and Steven Lyubomirsky* and Yi Li and Mike He and Thierry Tambe and Gus Henry Smith and Akash Gaonkar and Vishal Canumalla and Gu-Yeon Wei and Aarti Gupta and Sharad Malik and Zachary Tatlock}, 
	title = {Application-Level Validation of Accelerator Designs Using a Formal Software/Hardware Interface}, 
	booktitle = {ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems}, 
	year = {2024}, 
}
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Dynamic Tensor Rematerialization (Spotlight)
Marisa Kirisame*, Steven Lyubomirsky*, Altan Haan*, Jennifer Brennan, Mike He, Jared Roesch, Tianqi Chen, Zachary Tatlock
International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR'21), 2021
Project PagePaperCode
@article{kirisame2021dynamic, 
	author = {Marisa Kirisame* and Steven Lyubomirsky* and Altan Haan* and Jennifer Brennan and Mike He and Jared Roesch and Tianqi Chen and Zachary Tatlock}, 
	title = {Dynamic Tensor Rematerialization}, 
	booktitle = {International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR'21)}, 
	year = {2021}, 
}

Workshops / Misc

(*: Equal contribution)

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Ranking Formal Specifications using LLMs (To Appear)
Mike He, Zhendong Ang, Ankush Desai, Aarti Gupta
International Workshop on Language Models and Programming Languages (LMPL'25), 2025
Project PagePaperCode
@article{pinferlmpl2025, 
	author = {Mike He and Zhendong Ang and Ankush Desai and Aarti Gupta}, 
	title = {Ranking Formal Specifications using LLMs}, 
	booktitle = {International Workshop on Language Models and Programming Languages (LMPL'25)}, 
	year = {2025}, 
}
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Improving Term Extraction with Acyclic Constraints
Mike He, Haichen Dong, Sharad Malik, Aarti Gupta
E-Graph Research, Applications, Practices, and Human-factors Symposium (PLDI/EGRAPHS'23), 2023
Project PagePaperCode
@article{he23extraction, 
	author = {Mike He and Haichen Dong and Sharad Malik and Aarti Gupta}, 
	title = {Improving Term Extraction with Acyclic Constraints}, 
	booktitle = {E-Graph Research, Applications, Practices, and Human-factors Symposium (PLDI/EGRAPHS'23)}, 
	year = {2023}, 
}
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From DSLs to Accelerator-rich Platform Implementations: Addressing the Mapping Gap
Bo-Yuan Huang*, Steven Lyubomirsky*, Thierry Tambe*, Yi Li, Mike He, Gus Smith, Gu-Yeon Wei, Aarti Gupta, Sharad Malik, Zachary Tatlock
Workshop on Languages, Tools, and Techniques for Accelerator Design (LATTE'21), 2021
Project PagePaperPoster
@article{huang21latte, 
	author = {Bo-Yuan Huang* and Steven Lyubomirsky* and Thierry Tambe* and Yi Li and Mike He and Gus Smith and Gu-Yeon Wei and Aarti Gupta and Sharad Malik and Zachary Tatlock}, 
	title = {From DSLs to Accelerator-rich Platform Implementations: Addressing the Mapping Gap}, 
	booktitle = {Workshop on Languages, Tools, and Techniques for Accelerator Design (LATTE'21)}, 
	year = {2021}, 
}
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Humanity's Last Exam
Scale AI, Center for AI Safety
ArXiv, 2025
Project PagePaperCode
@article{phan2025humanitysexam, 
	author = {Scale AI and Center for AI Safety}, 
	title = {Humanity's Last Exam}, 
	booktitle = {ArXiv}, 
	year = {2025}, 
}

Experience

Automated Reasoning Group, Amazon Web Services, May 2025 → Aug 2025
Applied Scientist Intern
Mentor: Dr. Ankush Desai
Santa Clara, CA
Database System Lab, Amazon Web Services, May 2024 → Aug 2024
Applied Scientist Intern
Mentor: Dr. Ankush Desai
Santa Clara, CA
Taichi Graphics (Now Meshy.AI), June 2022 → Sep 2022
Compiler R&D Intern
Mentor: Zhanlue Yang, Yi Xu
Remote and Beijing, China
Strategic CAD Lab (Intel Labs), Mar 2022 → June 2022
Formal Verification Research Intern
Mentor: Dr. Zhenkun Yang
Remote and Hillsboro, OR
Programming Language and Software Engineering Lab, Oct 2019 → June 2022
Research Assistant
Mentor: Dr. Steven Lybomirsky
Seattle, WA

Talks

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Ph.D. General Examination
Princeton University, April 16, 2024
Slides
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CatsTail: Packet programs synthesis via Equality Saturation
Princeton University, December 2023
Slides
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Improving Term Extraction with Acyclic Constraints
PLDI EGRAPHS'23, June 2023
Slides / Recording
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Towards automated super-optimization for Taichi using Equality Saturation
Taichi Graphics, January 2023
Slides / Recording
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Efficient E-Graph Extraction via Linear Programming
Princeton University, December 2022
Slides
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Pyrope: towards correct-by-construction hardware modeling in Python/HeteroCL
Intel Labs, June 2022
Slides
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Correct & Flexible Compiler Support for Custom Accelerators
SRC ADA Center, September 2021
Slides

Professional Activities

  • Reviewer: IEEE TMC, AAE'25@KDD, SciPy'25
  • Artifact Evaluation Committee: POPL'25, PLDI'24, POPL'24, MLSys'23, MICRO'21
  • Sub-reviewer: OOPSLA'24

Misc

  • I love classical music and enjoy playing the violin. I've been playing the violin for about 20 years. I received the Lv.9 certification issued by the Central Conservatory of Music when I was in middle school. Here is a sample recording (Meditation from Thais) made in Dec. 2023. Some other recordings are available @ Bilibili (the website is in Chinese).
  • I was a part-time translator / proofreading editor in Gawr Gura's Chinese fansub team. Gura is a virtual streamer at YouTube affiliated with Hololive Production (EN).
  • My ErdÅ‘s number is 4

Friends and Colleagues (by alphabetical order of last names)


Visitors are welcomed!

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