CS PhD Candidate @ UVA Pronoun: She/her
I am Farzana, a PhD Candidate in the Computer Science department at the University of Virginia (UVA), working with Professor Kevin Skadron. My current research explores Processing-In-Memory (PIM), where I design general-purpose PIM architectures and work on benchmarking and simulator design for PIM.
I am from Bangladesh, and my journey in computer science began during my undergrad. I completed my bachelor's in Computer Science and Engineering at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), where I worked with Professor Rifat Shahriyar on parallelizing the Branch and Bound algorithm for the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP).
Over the years, I have delved into various research areas, from automata processing on FPGA platforms to designing efficient data structures for dynamic graph processing. I am driven by a love for optimization—whether it is improving hardware or software.
If you would like to chat about research, projects, or anything, feel free to reach out at farzana at virginia dot edu.
| PhD Candidate Computer Science University of Virginia | Present |
| BSc Computer Science and Engineering Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) | 2011 - 2016 |
| Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) Govt. Hazi Mohd. Mohsin College, Chittagong, Bangladesh | 2008 - 2010 |
| Secondary School Certificate (SSC) B. M. S. Girls' High School and College, Chittagong, Bangladesh | 2006 - 2008 |
| Graduate Research Assistant Department of Computer Science University of Virginia (UVA) | Present |
| Software Engineer Intern Google | Summer 2023 |
| Software Engineer Intern Meta Platforms Inc. | Summer 2022 |
| Graduate Teaching Assistant Department of Computer Science University of Virginia (UVA) | Fall 2019 - Fall 2021 |
| Software Engineer iPay Systems Ltd. | Feb 2016 - Jan 2017 |
| Undergraduate Research Assistant Department of Computer Science and Engineering Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) | Jul 2014 - Jul 2015 |
| Security Implications of Value Prediction For my hardware security course project, I designed and implemented threat models to attack one of the microarchitectural optimizations called value predictor. The hypotheses for the threat model was, existing value predictors are susceptible to targeted mis-prediction, and therefore can be mapped directly to the Load Value Injection (LVI) type attacks. For the hardware simulator, Gem5 has been used in this project. | Gem5, x86 Assembly |
| RISC-V Processor Implemented a basic RV32I processor for the Computer Organization and Design course project. The processor uses single issue pipelining. Static branch prediction (predict branch as not taken) has been used to handle control hazard. In order to handle structural hazard, a memory arbiter has been implemented and used. For handling data hazard, a register tracker has been implemented and used. VHDL has been used for the implementation, ModelSim has been used for design simulation and Precision Synthesis for design synthesis. | VHDL, ModelSIM |
| Simple Shell As a part of my graduate operating systems course, I implemented linux shell functionality using POSIX. I used C++ for the implementation. The shell functionality includes: executing commands, single input/output redirection, and pipelining | C++ |
| Threads & Barrier Implemented a parallel, binary reduction algorithm to find the maximum number in a given list. For N numbers, the program uses log2(N) threads to cooperatively determine the maximum number in the list. One of the challenging part of the project is, no new threads have been spawned in each round - threads have been reused in all the rounds. Besides, in order to ensure synchronization among the threads, a barrier has been implemented using posix binary semaphore. | C++ |
| FAT32 Implemented a simplified C API for read-only operations on FAT32 files and directories. | C++ |
| Hole Punch Implemented C APIs to address the issue of communicating with a client which is hiding behind firewall or NAT. As the client is not publicly accessible, built an external port forwarding mechanism similar to ssh reverse port-forwarding and SOCKS without the encryption overhead. This mechanism circumvents the restrictions of NAT and firewall and extablishes the connection with outside port. | C |
The Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia, presents awards to the graduate and undergraduate students in different categories. I got the end of the year (2021-2022) award in the category outstanding graduate teaching
Computing Research Association-Women (CRA-W), USA awarded the travel grant for participating in the CRA-W Grad Cohort Workshop 2020
Our paper titled A Tale of Institutional Education in Bangladesh: Students' Perspective got the ICCIT, 2016 conference award in the track ITS: Information Technology and Systems
I volunteered as a webmaster for creating the very first webpage of the BWCSE. This helped to present the activities of the BWCSE to the outside world, as a result BWCSE presented me the Most Significant Contributor of The Year, 2014 award
I have received this scholarship during my undergad in the year 2014. Because of this scholarship I was able to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC), Phoenix, Arizona, USA, October 2014. This was the very first time an undergrad student from Bangladesh got this scholarship
I got this scholarship from the Chittagong, Bangladesh Education Board for my outstanding performance in the secondary school board examination
I got this scholarship from the Chittagong, Bangladesh Education Board for my outstanding performance in the junior school board examination
A couple of volunteer organizations I have been involved with are Bangladeshi Women in Computer Science and Engineering (BWCSE) and Association of Bangladeshi Students at UVA. I am always looking forward to getting involved with volunteer organizations working on mental health, women in computer science, and climate change. Feel free to reach out to me at farzana at virginia dot edu if you want an extra hand for your organization or just chat!
| Mentor Computer Science Department Graduate Student Group at the University of Virginia Mentoring a first year PhD student at the CS department of UVA | 2022 - 2023 |
| Media Chair Association of Bangladeshi Students at UVA Did photography and videography at the events arranged by Association of Bangladeshi Students at UVA | 2021 - 2022 |
| Mentor Bangladeshi Women in Computer Science and Engineering (BWCSE) Worked as a mentor for couple of undergrad female students | 2017 - 2018 |
| Event Director Bangladeshi Women in Computer Science and Engineering (BWCSE) Planned and organized events such as robotics competition, faculty/alumni talks, etc. | 2015 - 2016 |
| Webmater Bangladeshi Women in Computer Science and Engineering (BWCSE) Designed and developed the webpage for the BWCSE | 2014 - 2015 |
I love photography, especially macro and landscape shots. You can check out some of my work here. I also enjoy doing yoga and am an avid follower of Yoga with Adriene. Occasionally, I solve random programming problems for fun. Although, dynamic programming is my nightmare! Oh, and I went skydiving once—definitely a thrill I won’t forget!