Turakhia Lab is looking for exceptionally talented and highly motivated PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to join. We work at the intersection of computer architecture and computational biology. We’re interested in developing algorithms and domain-specific hardware accelerators that enable faster and cheaper progress in biology and medicine.

Who should apply?

Students with prior experience in one or more of the following research areas should consider applying:

  • Computer Architecture
  • High-performance computing (HPC)
  • Hardware-Software Co-design
  • GPU / FPGA computing
  • VLSI Design
  • Computational Genomics / Bioinformatics
  • ML/AI for Biological Applications

Why apply?

  • We’re highly interdisciplinary and publish in top-tier CS (previously ASPLOS, HPCA, SC, CACM etc.) and biological (previously at Nature, Nature Genetics, PNAS, NAR, MBE, PLOS Genetics etc.) research venues. Interdisciplinary research is highly valued these days in the scientific community, particularly at the intersection of CS and biology. Read this.
  • Our research is well-recognized in the community. Our previous research has been awarded ASPLOS best paper award, Micro Top Picks award, NVIDIA graduate fellowship, featured in a number of prominent newsletters and blogs, invited for over two dozen industrial and academic talks and keynotes recently, featured on the cover-page of a Communications of the ACM (CACM) issue and received multiple gift funding from Microsoft Research and NVIDIA.
  • We have a number of collaborators covering a broad range of expertise. Our past and ongoing collaborators include hardware, software, algorithms, genomics and phylogenetics experts at Stanford University, Genomics Institute of UCSC, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Microsoft Research, NVIDIA and Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. We are starting more collaborations at UCSD.
  • We are a new lab. This means you are likely to play a more significant role in lab activities and establishing a good reputation for the lab than a typical graduate student. It would also mean a more hands-on mentoring approach from the advisor.
  • We are committed to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
  • We’re at UCSD in the amazing city of San Diego
    • UCSD is currently ranked 10th among engineering schools in the US. UCSD is the largest engineering school on the US west coast and is growing rapidly.
    • UCSD has outstanding research centers, including the Machine-Integrated Computing and Security (MICS) and Center of Microbiome Innovation (CMI), that Turakhia lab is involved with.
    • San Diego is a hub for many tech (Qualcomm, Intel, Apple, Broadcom, Sony, Amazon, Walmart etc.) and biotech (Illumina, Human Longevity Inc, Dexcom, Bionano Genomics, Edico etc.) companies and start-ups that would offer great opportunities for the technology transfer of your research. SD also has a vibrant </b>VC community</b> of its own and is not far from Silicon Valley.
    • UCSD is located in a beautiful campus at a walkable distance from a beach (great for surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving and paragliding all year round!).
    • San Diego is among the world’s best cities to live in and is known for its great beaches, parks, culture, weather and of course, comic-con!

How to apply?

Undergraduate and masters students, please send your PhD program application to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at University of California San Diego (UCSD) by December 20, 2023 (see http://ece.ucsd.edu/graduate/graduate-admissions for full details). Make sure to apply to the Computer Engineering (EC79) specialization and to mention Prof. Turakhia in your application. Once your application is completed, please also send Prof. Turakhia an email with your details at yturakhia@ucsd.edu.

Graduating PhD students who are looking for postdoctoral opportunities, please email yturakhia@ucsd.edu with your CV and a brief description of your research background and interests.