6/8/2021 As told to Lizzie Roehrs
Charbel Sakr played a crucial role in organizing the 2017, 2018, and 2019 CSL Student Conferences. His time at CSL was crucial in preparing him for his work with NVIDIA.
Written by As told to Lizzie Roehrs
Charbel Sakr played a crucial role in organizing the 2017, 2018, and 2019 CSL Student Conferences. His time at CSL was crucial in preparing him for his work with NVIDIA.
- What are your plans after graduation?
I plan to work as a research scientist at Nvidia. I will be part of the ASIC/VLSI research group at NVIDIA. My work will consist of researching techniques for deep learning implementation in resource efficient ways. In other words, I will be looking at ways of co-designing algorithms and accelerators.
- How will your experiences at CSL help you in this career?
The topic of research conducted in the team I will be joining is well aligned with my own PhD research. Therefore, the work I did in CSL over the years will hopefully be a good foundation for me and help me out in my future career.
In my PhD, I mostly worked on low precision deep learning, both for inference and training. I derived theoretical bounds on the accuracy of fixed-point networks as a function of numerical precision. I derived methods for fixed-point training with per-tensor quantization at close-to-minimal precisions. I studied the impact of floating-point underflows in the context of the back-propagation algorithm. And, I worked on signal processing methods to enhance the energy efficiency of in-memory architectures.
- What was your favorite part of your time at CSL?
The impromptu discussions with fellow researchers and unplanned attendances to seminars that were being held. Such interactions were paramount to advancing my own work and helping me grow as a researcher. It is unfortunate that Covid put an end to that.
CSL hosts some of the best researchers in the world. The environment at CSL promotes discussions and collaborations across disciplines. There are frequent seminars and social events that allow students to always be on top of what is cutting edge at the time.
- What advice do you have for current students?
Do not assume that good things will happen, but rather be proactive in ensuring you are making progress.
- What is your home department?
ECE
- Anything else?
It was a pleasure being part of the CSL family. Particularly, organizing the CSL student conference was beautiful, a memory I will cherish. I will miss this place.