Positions

• Assistant Professor, University of California, Berkeley, 2024–present
• Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Washington, 2021–2023

Education

• University of Washington, PhD 2021
• Carnegie Mellon University, BS 2016

Teaching

• CS 263: Reasoning About Programs (Spring 2026)
• CS 164: Programming Languages and Compilers (Spring 2025)
• CS 265: Compiler Optimization (Fall 2024)
• CS 294-260: Declarative Program Analysis and Optimization (Spring 2024)

Recognition

• SIGMOD Record Research Highlight, SIGMOD 2024, “Free Join: Unifying Worst-Case Optimal and Traditional Joins”
• MIT PL Review 2024 Selection, “Better Together: Unifying Datalog and Equality Saturation”
• Distinguished Paper, OOPSLA 2021, “Rewrite Rule Inference Using Equality Saturation”
• Distinguished Paper, POPL 2021, “egg: Fast and extensible equality saturation”
• Older Entries
• Invited Post, SIGPLAN Blog 2021, “Fast and Extensible Equality Saturation with egg”
• Invited Speaker, ICCAD 2019, “Scaling Microfluidics to Complex, Dynamic Protocols”
• Invited Speaker, Biochips Summer School 2019
• Qualcomm Innovation Fellow, 2019
• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Honorable Mention, 2018

Service

Program Committees

• EGRAPHS Workshop Organizer, PC Chair, 2022-2026
• PC Member: miniKanren 2026, OOPSLA 2026, PLDI 2025, ECOOP 2025, ASPLOS 2025, POPL 2024

University/Department Service

• Regent’s and Chancellor’s Scholarship Interviewer, 2024
• Graduate Admissions Committee, 2023-26
• Older Entries
• Co-organizer, CSE Pre-Application Review Service, 2020, 2021
  Helped create a program to provide support and feedback on applicants’ CV and statements, especially applicants from historically marginalized populations
• Co-chair, PhD student recruiting and visit days, 2019
• Member, Department chair selection committee, 2019
• Member, PhD student application reading committee, 2018-2021
• Co-chair, PhD student orientation, 2018

Professional Service

• Dagstuhl Seminar 26022, Organizer
• PLMW @ SPLASH 2026, Co-organizer
• EGRAPHS Community Organizer, 2024-present
• SIGPLAN-M mentor, 2021-present

Awards and Funding

• Google Research Scholar Award, 2025, “E-Graphs for Program Optimization”

Publications by Category

Journal Articles

1. Iterative Search for Reconfigurable Accelerator Blocks with a Compiler in the Loop

   Max Willsey, Vincent Lee, Alvin Cheung, Ras Bodik, Luis Ceze
   IEEE TCAD, October 2018

2. DNA Data Storage and Hybrid Molecular–Electronic Computing

   Douglas Carmean, Luis Ceze, Georg Seelig, Callie Bee, Karin Strauss, Max Willsey
   Proceedings of the IEEE, January 2019
   Invited paper

3. High Density DNA Data Storage Library via Dehydration with Digital Microfluidic Retrieval

   Sharon Newman, Ashley Stephenson, Max Willsey, Bichlien Nguyen, Chris Takahashi, Karin Strauss, Luis Ceze
   Nature Communications, April 2019

4. PurpleDrop: A Digital Microfluidics-based Platform for Hybrid Molecular-Electronics Applications

   Ashley Stephenson, Max Willsey, Jeff McBride, Sharon Newman, Bichlien Nguyen, Chris Takahashi, Karin Strauss, Luis Ceze
   IEEE Micro 2020, July 2020

5. Co-Optimization of Design and Fabrication Plans for Carpentry

   Haisen Zhao, Max Willsey, Amy Zhu, Chandrakana Nandi, Zachary Tatlock, Justin Solomon, Adriana Schulz
   ACM TOG, March 2022

6. Virtualizing Existing Fluidic Programs

   Caleb Winston, Max Willsey, Luis Ceze
   ACM JETC, August 2022

7. Free Join: Unifying Worst-Case Optimal and Traditional Joins

   Remy Wang, Max Willsey, Dan Suciu
   SIGMOD Record 2024, April 2024
   SIGMOD Record Research Highlight of our Free Join paper

Refereed Conference Papers

1. Puddle: A Dynamic, Error-Correcting, Full-Stack Microfluidics Platform

   Max Willsey, Ashley Stephenson, Chris Takahashi, Pranav Vaid, Bichlien Nguyen, Michal Piszczek, Christine Betts, Sharon Newman, Sarang Joshi, Karin Strauss, Luis Ceze
   ASPLOS 2019, April 2019

2. Scaling Microfluidics to Complex, Dynamic Protocols

   Max Willsey, Ashley Stephenson, Chris Takahashi, Bichlien Nguyen, Karin Strauss, Luis Ceze
   ICCAD 2019, November 2019
   Invited Paper

3. Synthesizing Structured CAD Models with Equality Saturation and Inverse Transformations

   Chandrakana Nandi, Max Willsey, Adam Anderson, James Wilcox, Eva Darulova, Dan Grossman, Zachary Tatlock
   PLDI 2020, March 2020

4. egg: Fast and Extensible E-graphs

   Max Willsey, Remy Wang, Oliver Flatt, Chandrakana Nandi, Zachary Tatlock, Pavel Panchekha
   POPL 2021, January 2021
   Distinguished Paper, SIGPLAN Research Highlight

5. Equality Saturation for Tensor Graph Superoptimization

   Yichen Yang, Phitchaya Mangpo Phothilimthana, Remy Wang, Max Willsey, Sudip Roy, Jacques Pienaar
   MLSys 2021, January 2021

6. Rewrite Rule Inference Using Equality Saturation

   Chandrakana Nandi, Max Willsey, Amy Zhu, Remy Wang, Brett Saiki, Adam Anderson, Adriana Schulz, Dan Grossman, Zachary Tatlock
   OOPSLA 2021, August 2021
   Distinguished Paper

7. Relational E-Matching

   Yihong Zhang, Remy Wang, Max Willsey, Zachary Tatlock
   POPL 2022, January 2022

8. Small Proofs from Congruence Closure

   Oliver Flatt, Sam Coward, Max Willsey, Zachary Tatlock, Pavel Panchekha
   FMCAD 2022, September 2022

9. babble: Learning Better Abstractions with E-Graphs and Anti-Unification

   David Cao, Rose Kunkel, Chandrakana Nandi, Max Willsey, Zachary Tatlock, Nadia Polikarpova
   POPL 2023, January 2023

10. Free Join: Unifying Worst-Case Optimal and Traditional Joins

    Remy Wang, Max Willsey, Dan Suciu
    SIGMOD 2023, January 2023
    Selected as a SIGMOD Record Research Highlight

11. Better Together: Unifying Datalog and Equality Saturation

    Yihong Zhang, Remy Wang, Oliver Flatt, David Cao, Philip Zucker, Eli Rosenthal, Zachary Tatlock, Max Willsey
    PLDI 2023, June 2023
    Selected for MIT PL Review 2024

12. Equality Saturation Theory Exploration à la Carte

    Anjali Pal, Brett Saiki, Ryan Tjoa, Cynthia Richey, Amy Zhu, Oliver Flatt, Max Willsey, Zachary Tatlock, Chandrakana Nandi
    OOPSLA 2023, October 2023

13. Database Theory in Action: Search-based Program Optimization

    Yihong Zhang, Dan Suciu, Remy Wang, Max Willsey
    ICDT 2025, DBT in Action Track, May 2024