Alexia Massalin

Alexia Massalin
Alexia Massalin
Born	Henry Massalin; January 1, 1962; Astoria, Queens, New York
Nationality	American
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

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

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.

Personal life

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 piggy back rides to people she met, which included notable computer scientists such as Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, and artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky.[6]

References

Massalin, Henry (1987). "Superoptimizer: A look at the smallest program" (PDF). ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News. 15 (5): 122–126. doi:10.1145/36177.36194. Retrieved 2023-04-25. Given an instruction set, the superoptimizer finds the shortest program to compute a function. Startling programs have been generated, many of them engaging in convoluted bit-fiddling bearing little resemblance to the source programs which defined the functions. The key idea in the superoptimizer is a probabilistic test that makes exhaustive searches practical for programs of useful size.
Poole, Gary Andrew (1996-12-01). "Qua". Wired. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on 2017-07-04. Retrieved 2016-08-23.
Pu, Calton; Massalin, Henry; Ioannidis, John (1992). Synthesis: An Efficient Implementation of Fundamental Operating System Services (PDF) (Ph.D. thesis). New York, NY, USA: Department of Computer Sciences, Columbia University. UMI Order No. GAX92-32050. Retrieved 2023-04-25. Archived 2016-03-12 at the Wayback Machine
- Lay summary in: Valerie Henson (2008-02-20). "KHB: Synthesis: An Efficient Implementation of Fundamental Operating Systems Services". LWN.net.
Henson, Valerie. "KHB: Synthesis: An Efficient Implementation of Fundamental Operating Systems Services". LWN.net. LWN.net. Archived from the original on 2017-07-04. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
"Company: MicroUnity". Archived from the original on 2017-07-04. Retrieved 2012-05-11.
Poole, Gary Andrew (1998-12-24). "In the Land of the Weird, Standing Out Takes a Little Work". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2017-07-04. Retrieved 2016-02-09.

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[Massalin_1987_Superoptimizer-1] Massalin, Henry (1987). "Superoptimizer: A look at the smallest program" (PDF). ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News. 15 (5): 122–126. doi:10.1145/36177.36194. Retrieved 2023-04-25. Given an instruction set, the superoptimizer finds the shortest program to compute a function. Startling programs have been generated, many of them engaging in convoluted bit-fiddling bearing little resemblance to the source programs which defined the functions. The key idea in the superoptimizer is a probabilistic test that makes exhaustive searches practical for programs of useful size.

[Poole_1996_Qua-2] Poole, Gary Andrew (1996-12-01). "Qua". Wired. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on 2017-07-04. Retrieved 2016-08-23.

[Massalin_1992_Synthesis-3] Pu, Calton; Massalin, Henry; Ioannidis, John (1992). Synthesis: An Efficient Implementation of Fundamental Operating System Services (PDF) (Ph.D. thesis). New York, NY, USA: Department of Computer Sciences, Columbia University. UMI Order No. GAX92-32050. Retrieved 2023-04-25. Archived 2016-03-12 at the Wayback Machine
Lay summary in: Valerie Henson (2008-02-20). "KHB: Synthesis: An Efficient Implementation of Fundamental Operating Systems Services". LWN.net.

[4] Lay summary in: Valerie Henson (2008-02-20). "KHB: Synthesis: An Efficient Implementation of Fundamental Operating Systems Services". LWN.net.

[Henson_KHB-4] Henson, Valerie. "KHB: Synthesis: An Efficient Implementation of Fundamental Operating Systems Services". LWN.net. LWN.net. Archived from the original on 2017-07-04. Retrieved 2016-10-27.

[Microunity-5] "Company: MicroUnity". Archived from the original on 2017-07-04. Retrieved 2012-05-11.

[Poole_1998_Standing-6] Poole, Gary Andrew (1998-12-24). "In the Land of the Weird, Standing Out Takes a Little Work". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2017-07-04. Retrieved 2016-02-09.