Biographical Information
Current Positions
- Elizabeth & James E. Turner Faculty Fellowship, Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech
- Professor, Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech
- Professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Virginia Tech
- Director,
Laboratory, Virginia Tech - Director; CUDA Research Center
- Faculty Member; NSF Center on High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing (CHREC), Virginia Tech
- Faculty Member; Wireless @ VT
Summary
Dr. Wu-chun Feng — or more simply, "Wu" — is a professor of
computer science and electrical & computer engineering at Virginia Tech, where he
directs the Systems, Networking, and Renaissance Grokking
() Laboratory.
His research interests span many areas
of high-performance networking and computing from hardware to applications software.
To the computer science and engineering community, he is perhaps best known for his systems-level research in high-performance networking, ranging from systems-area network architectures such as Quadrics and 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GigE) to wide-area network frameworks and implementations in support of distributed computing such as adaptive flow control for TCP (i.e., DRS: Dynamic Right-Sizing) and hybrid circuit- and packet-switched networks (i.e., CHEETAH: Circuit-switched High-speed End-to-End Transport ArcHitecture) and the autonomic rate-adaptive protocols that run on them.
To the general scientific community, he is oftentimes referred to as "Mr. Green Destiny" or "The Green Destiny Guy." Green Destiny debuted in early 2002 as the first major instantiation of the Supercomputing in Small Spaces project. It was a 240-processor supercomputer with a footprint of five square feet and a power envelope of a mere 3.2 kilowatts that debuted in early 2002. This supercomputer, which produced an admirable Linpack rating of 101 Gflops, operated without any unscheduled downtime for its two-year lifetime while running in an 85° F warehouse at 7,400 feet above sea level with no air conditioning, no air humidification, and no air filtration. Green Destiny garnered international attention in over 100 media outlets including BBC News, CNN, and The New York Times and led in part to Dr. Feng being named to HPCwire's Top People to Watch List in 2004.
Dr. Feng received a B.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering and Music (Honors) and an M.S. in Computer Engineering from Penn State University in 1988 and 1990, respectively. He earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1996. His previous professional stints include IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, NASA Ames Research Center, Vosaic, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University, The Ohio State University, Orion Multisystems, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Hobbies
Outside a full professional and personal life, Wu has an assortment of hobbies that help maintain his sanity.
- Cycling (road and off-road)
- Hiking & Backpacking
- Inline Skating
- Music
- Running
- Snowboarding & Skiing (cross-country and downhill)
- Snowboarding
- Ultimate Frisbee
- Weightlifting
Education
- Ph.D., Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1996
- M.S., Computer Engineering, Penn State University, 1990
- B.S., Computer Engineering, Penn State University, 1988
- B.S. Honors, Music, Penn State University, 1988