Research Interests
Linda Torczon's research interests include code generation,
interprocedural dataflow analysis and optimization, and programming
environments. In the code generation realm, she published a set of
improvements to graph coloring register allocation. She is also one of
the key implementors of an optimizing compiler for Fortran. In the area
of interprocedural analysis and optimization, she developed techniques
for interprocedural constant propagation and recompilation analysis. She
also completed a study on the effectiveness of several interprocedural
constant propagation techniques and collaborated on a study of the
effectiveness of inline substitution. In the programming environment
arena, she was one of the driving forces behind the ParaScope programming
environment project at Rice. She was a principal architect of the
framework for whole program analysis in the ParaScope programming
environment.
Techniques that she developed are widely used in
industrial and research compilers.
Linda Torczon is a principal investigator on the Virtual Grid Application Development Software Project sponsored by the National Science Foundation. From 1990 to 2000, Dr. Torczon served as executive director of the Center for Research on Parallel Computation (CRPC), a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center. In this capacity, she coordinated extensive research efforts, education and outreach programs, and technology transfer activities. She is a co-editor of the CRPC Handbook of Parallel Computation, intended as a resource for computer science and application researchers, as well as for computational science and parallel computing education and training. She also served as the executive director of HiPerSoft and of the Los Alamos Computer Science Institute.
Professional Activities
Linda Torczon has been involved in activities intended to increase the
number of women and underrepresented minorities entering mathematics and
science related fields, particularly the field of computational science
and engineering. With Ken Kennedy, she has initiated several CRPC
outreach activities, including the CRPC
GirlTECH
program and the Girl Games effort.
She has made presentations to students participating in
Expanding
Your Horizons,
The Galveston Bay
Project, and Girl Games
programs that encourage middle school girls to pursue technical careers.
She has made presentations to K-12 teachers as part of GirlTECH and other
Rice University programs aimed at improving mathematical and
computational skills among K-12 teachers. She served on the Shared
Decision Making Team of
The
Rice School/La Escuela Rice, a Houston Independent School District
K-8 laboratory school. Finally, as tutorial
chair for the ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and
Implementation, she directed an NSF-funded tutorial program that brought
faculty members from undergraduate institutions, particularly women's
colleges and institutions with large minority enrollments, to the
conference and tutorials.
With Keith Cooper, Linda Torczon co-authored Engineering a Compiler, which is intended as a textbook for senior-level courses on compiler construction and as a resource for compiler implementors.