Gus Smith’s Website

Last updated September 26th, 2026.

2026-05-07: My collaborators and I had two papers accepted to PLDI 2026: Improving Equality Saturation for EDA via Semantic E-Graphs (co-first authors Sijie Kong and Jingtao Xia; my first last-author paper!) and Fungible Memories for Automated Technology Mapping and Retargeting (co-first authors Zach Sisco and Sijie Kong). (for full timeline, see Timeline)

(See my CV for a full record of my work.)

I am a research scientist at Normal Computing, where I work on harnessing the power of novel compute substrates and developing AI hardware design techniques.

Formal methods and compilers techniques shape the way I approach hardware design and AI. I am proud to have received my PhD from the University of Washington’s PLSE Lab, where I gained formal methods and compilers expertise under my advisors Zach Tatlock and Luis Ceze.

After my PhD, I worked at the AI-for-EDA startup ChipStack, which was successfully acquired by Cadence. I’m also proud to have been a member of the team at YosysHQ, developing the world’s leading open-source EDA tooling.

I have been lucky enough to mentor many great students in my short career. I currently work with Andrew Cheung, who is pursuing his PhD at UCSD while working as an AI resident at Normal (GitHub, LinkedIn). Previously, I worked with Sijie Kong (now a PhD student at Cornell) while he was pursuing his MS with Prof. Jonathan Balkind at UCSB. During my PhD at UW, I worked with Vishal Canumalla (now an MS student at Stanford; GitHub, LinkedIn), Andrew Cheung, and Andrew Liu (now at Jane Street). While at Penn State, I worked with a great team of motivated undergrads: Nelson Troncoso Aldas, Christopher Pratt, David de Matheu, and Tom Kawchak.

I’m lucky to have called Pennsylvania home throughout all the previous chapters of my life, having lived there until 2018 when I started a new chapter in Seattle. I grew up in Mountain Top (in the Wyoming Valley, outside of Wilkes-Barre) and have traveled to/lived in all corners of the state. In my free time, I write fiction and poetry, program, surf, and run.