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Lisa Wills

Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Computer Science
D304 LSRC, 308 Research Drive, Durham, NC 27708
D304 LSRC, 308 Research Drive, Durham, NC 27708

Research Interests


I enjoy solving difficult problems surrounding computations with the goal to process large volumes of data efficiently. My research interests include computer architecture and microarchitecture, hardware-software co-designs, accelerators, and emerging application domains ― especially those in big data analytics such as genomics, graphs, and databases. One of my research goals is to greatly simplify the design, deployment, and usage of custom hardware and to leverage this research in hardware acceleration to advance state-of-the-art research in the healthcare domain as well as other natural sciences.

Selected Grants


AI Institute: Athena: AI-Driven Next-generation Networks at the Edge

ResearchSenior Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2021 - 2026

CAREER: Effectuating Hardware-Accelerated Systems with Domain-Specific Primitives

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2021 - 2026

Applications Driving Architectures (ADA) Center

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Regents of the University of Michigan · 2021 - 2023