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Lin Zhong, Ph.D.
Joseph C. Tsai Professor
Director of Graduate Studies
Computer Science, Yale University

Contact
51 Prospect St, New Haven, CT 06511
lin.zhong AT yale DOT edu
Office: 308A Arthur K. Watson Hall


I am an experimental computer scientist who builds systems to validate research hypotheses. Our current research focuses on designing low-latency, high-throughput systems in the context of AI and Quantum Computing. In AI, we are rethinking the serving stack for foundation models. Our work on Prompt Cache has already become a standard practice in industry. In Quantum Computing, we address one of the most computationally demanding classical challenges for fault-tolerant quantum computers: quantum error correction (QEC) decoding. We have developed some of the world's most advanced QEC decoders, including Helios, Fusion Blossom, and Micro Blossom, which have influenced both commercial QEC decoder development and scientific experiments.

We also have a lasting interest in novel operating systems (OS) design, from Linux-based K2 to Theseus OSTheseus and Hopter OSHopter, both written from scratch in Rust. We continue to explore how generative AI could reshape the OS stack.

All our research is open-source. If you have trouble locating a code repository, feel free to email us.


Biosketch, Full CV

☆Graduate research opportunities available in a broad range of experimental topics. Many of the opportunities are collaborative with colleagues from the NSF AI Institute and Yale Quantum Institute.


My earlier research was in Mobile Computing, with work that has influenced many aspects of modern smartphones, including displays, browsers, sensors, heterogeneous cores, cameras, and mental health applications. Our first low-latency, high-throughput system was Argos, the world's first massive MIMO system. It contributed to 3GPP 5G development and was commericialized by Skylark Wireless, a startup co-founded by my former Ph.D. student. We later showed that real-time massive MIMO baseband processing can be fully implemented in software, eliminating the need for specialized hardware such as FPGA.


Ph.D. Alumni (and their first jobs)

  • Yue Wu (Microsoft Q): Ph.D., 2025 (Best Paper Award, QCE'23).
  • Namitha Liyanage (Riverlane): Ph.D., 2025.
  • Kevin Boos (Founder of Theseus Systems): Ph.D., 2020 (Best Paper Award, MobiSys'14).
  • Min Hong Yun (Google): Ph.D., 2018 (Best Paper Award, MobiSys'14; Distinguished Paper Finalist, NDSS'19).
  • Clayton Shepard (CTO and Co-founder of Skylark Wireless): Ph.D., 2017 (ACM SigMobile Test of Time Award 2022).
  • Robert LiKamWa (Assistant Professor, Arizona State EE & Media): Ph.D., 2016 (Best Paper Award, MobiSys'13).
  • Ardalan Amiri Sani (Assistant Professor, UC Irvine CS): Ph.D., 2015 (Best Paper Award, MobiSys'14).
  • Hang Yu (MobiSport): Ph.D., 2015.
  • Felix Xiaozhu Lin (Assistant Professor, Purdue ECE): Ph.D., 2014 (Best Paper Award, ASPLOS'14).
  • Mian Dong (Co-founder of MobiSport): Ph.D., 2013 (Best Paper Award, MobiSys'11).
  • Ahmad Rahmati (Apple): Ph.D., 2012 (Best Paper Award, MobileHCI'07).
  • Jun Yao (Assistant Professor, UMass-Amherst ECE): Ph.D., 2011.

Selected Recent Publications (Full list)

  • Pie: a programmable serving system for emerging LLM applications (SOSP 2025)
  • Blindfold: Confidential memory management by untrusted operating system (NDSS 2025) (arXiv) (Distinguished Paper)
  • Prompt Cache: Modular attention reuse for low-latency inference (MLSys 2024) (arXiv) (impact: Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI)
  • Fusion Blossom: fast MWPM decoders for QEC (IEEE QCE 2023) (arXiv) (Best Paper, 1st Place, Quantum Systems Software)
  • Theseus: an experiment in operating system structure and state management (OSDI 2020) (PDF)

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