Mingkai Li | Columbia University

About Me

I am a 2nd-year Ph.D. student at Columbia University, advised by Prof. Tanvir Ahmed Khan. I also work closely with Prof. Suman Jana and Prof. Joe Devietti.

The goal of my research is to enable dependable heterogeneous systems on cloud and edge devices. I believe that the next-generation computing systems should take security and reliability as first design principles, rather than afterthoughts. Currently, I am particularly interested in two directions:

Automated Bug Detection: automated testing, analysis and verification techniques for heterogeneous systems.
Security By Design: In particular, hardware-software co-design such as memory tagging and capability-based architectures, and Rust.

Before Columbia, I received my B.E. in Computer Science from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). I was fortunate to work with Prof. Prateek Saxena and Prof. Trevor E. Carlson at NUS, as well as Prof. Xianghang Mi at USTC. At my spare time, I enjoy cycling, squash, and swimming.

Please feel free to reach out if you share similar interests!

Teaching

EECS6894: Data Center Processing by Prof. Tanvir Ahmed Khan, Teaching Assistant, Fall 2025
CSEE4119: Computer Networks by Prof. Ethan Katz-Bassett, Teaching Assistant, Fall 2024