Hello World! I am Burak Topcu. I am a second-year PhD student in the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering at PSU, under the supervision of Mahmut Taylan Kandemir. I completed my course workload and passed the qualifying exams, which consisted of core concepts of computer science, including operating systems, computer architecture, algorithms, theory, and data structures. I am an active member of AI4CI core group, and my research focuses as listed below:
- UVM Performance in Heterogenous Computing Environments:
- Sustainability in Computing Systems
- LLM Inference Accelerators
Short Biography
I pursued my BSc degree from the Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Middle East Technical University (METU) as an honorary student in 2020. There, I took introductory and intermediate-level courses, such as electronics (semiconductor devices, analog/digital circuits, and logic design), electromagnetic theory & waves, electromechanical energy conversions, circuits, signals and systems, and core computer science (data structures, operating systems, and so on.) domains. One can reach out to my graduation project here, which was about visible light communication and serial communication protocols.
Afterwards, I started my MSc education in the Dept. of Computer Engineering at Izmir Institute of Technology (IZTECH) under the supervision of Isil Oz, and worked as an RA in PARS Laboratory. I worked in Resource-Aware Compiler Design for Approximate Computing Techniques in GPGPU Applications (RAPPROX, TUBITAK 2519) and Hardware Fault Tolerance Analysis for GPGPU Applications (FTGPGPU, TUBITAK 3501) Projects. During my MSc, I gained a comprehensive knowledge of fault tolerance and error vulnerability, performance and energy optimizations on GPUs, and approximation-based accelerations on GPUs subjects. In addition, I took advanced computer architecture, heterogeneous programming, deep learning, and computer network courses.