Rodrigo Rocha

I am a Senior Researcher at the Huawei Research Centre, Edinburgh UK.

Previously, I worked as a Research Associate with Michael O'Boyle at the University of Edinburgh and Pramod Bhatotia at the Technical University of Munich, where my research was mostly focused on compiler optimizations and compiler construction. During my PhD at The University of Edinburgh, under the supervision of Hugh Leather, I worked with compiler optimizations for code-size reduction and vectorization.

I was a member of the Program Committee for CGO 2023, LCTES 2023, and CGO 2024. I was also a co-supervisor for 4 Bachelor's dissertations, 2 Master's dissertations, and a Google Summer of Code (GSoC).

In addition to my research on compilers, I am also a collaborator to the open-source LLVM compiler and the static binary translator llvm-mctoll. For me, making research innovations accessible to the wider world is as important as developing them in the first place.

Research Interests

Research Output

A total of 25 papers published since 2013, with 29 different co-authors.

Professional Experience

Senior Researcher (Nov/2022-Present)
Huawei Research -- Edinburgh, UK
CPU Architecture and Systems R&D

Research Associate (Nov/2020-Nov/2022)
The University of Edinburgh -- Scotland, UK
Institute for Computing Systems Architecture (ICSA)

Research Engineer (Jul/2022-Sep/2022)
Parity Technologies Limited -- London, UK
Optimizing smart contracts for the Blockchain

Lecturer (called Assistant Professor in Brazil) (Aug/2015-Jul/2016)
Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais (PUC Minas) -- Brazil
Institute of Exact Sciences and Informatics (ICEI)

Courses [show]
    2015/2
    • Computer Science
      • Parallel Programming (Concurrent and Distributed Programming) 68 hours
      • Seminars I (Topics: Linux and LaTeX) 17 hours
      • Seminars II (Topics: Introduction to Parallel Programming) 17 hours
    • Information Systems
      • Theory and Algorithms in Graphs 68 hours
    2016/1
    • Computer Science
      • Seminars I (Topics: Linux and C/C++) 17 hours
      • Seminars II (Topics: Introduction to Parallel Programming) 17 hours
    • Information Systems
      • Special Topics 68 hours
    • Civil Engineering
      • Laboratory of Computer Programming 34 hours

Education

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Computer Science (Sep/2017-Oct/2021)
The University of Edinburgh -- Scotland, UK
EPSRC CDT Studentship, ICSA Scholarship
Primary supervisor: Dr. Hugh Leather
Secondary supervisor: Dr. Murray Cole
External supervisor: Dr. Zheng Wang (University of Leeds -- England, UK)
Thesis: Reducing Code Size with Function Merging

Master of Science by Research (MscR) in Computer Science (Sep/2016-Aug/2017)
The University of Edinburgh -- Scotland, UK
Distinction Award
EPSRC CDT Studentship, ICSA Scholarship
Primary supervisor: Dr. Hugh Leather
Secondary supervisor: Dr. Murray Cole
External supervisor: Dr. Zheng Wang (University of Leeds -- England, UK)
Thesis: Online Iterative Compilation Guided by Work-based Profiling

Master of Science (MSc) in Computer Science (2013-2015)
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) -- Brazil
Average Grade -- 93.60%
CAPES & Dataprev Scholarships
Topic: Stream processing with Hadoop in the context of Big Data

Description [show]

For my Master's dissertation I developed a distributed stream processing system for large-scale data streams, inspired by the data-flow model. We designed a modular abstraction for the stream channels, allowing for reusable and programmable streams. This system was developed using the Hadoop ecosystem, including the Hadoop YARN, for job scheduling and cluster resource management; the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS); and the ZooKeeper, for distributed coordination.

Bachelor (BSc) of Computer Science (2008-2012)
Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais (PUC Minas) -- Brazil
Average Grade -- 91.61% (summa cum laude - top grade of the class)
Outstanding Student Award & Merit Medal of Honour

Awards

Mentoring Certificate, 2020 [pdf]
Google Summer of Code (GSoC)

Best Paper in CGO 2019 [jpeg]
International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization (CGO)

Awarded Master's Degree by Research with Distinction in 2017
The University of Edinburgh, UK

Outstanding BSc Student in Computer Science [pdf]
Brazilian Society of Computer Science (SBC)

Merit Medal of Honour [pdf]
Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais (PUC Minas)

Honourable mention in SBPO 2015
Brazilian Symposium on Operational Research (SBPO)

Honourable mention in WSCAD-WIC 2015
Workshop in High-Performance Computing and Computer Networks (WSCAD-WIC)