Jennifer Volk

Assistant Professor

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Electrical and Computer Engineering 

Contact: jennifer [dot] volk [at] wisc [dot] edu

About.

I am an incoming Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I received my Ph.D. at UC Santa Barbara in ECE in 2024, during which I was also a part-time researcher at MIT Lincoln Lab and a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan. My interests center on circuit design, but extend down to materials and up to computer architecture. For an up-to-date list of publications, please take a look at my publications page and scholar profile. I have open positions for students—if you are a prospective Ph.D. or ambitious undergraduate student and find what I do interesting, please reach out.

My work exploits circuit and device quirks in emerging technologies to build highly efficient systems. Using superconductor electronics as a timely case study (due to their ability to provide energy-efficient and high-performance systems for applications ranging from datacenter, neuromorphic, and quantum computing to space, satellite, and sensing systems), I focus on building ties between computer architecture and devices by defining simple electrical abstractions and designing scalable circuit components. In doing so, I firstly create pathways for direct translation between circuits and computer architecture, allowing computer architects to make well-informed decisions without the need for analog design know-how; and secondly enable circuit designers to have greater control over architectural metrics such as power consumption, area, delay, and robustness. As such, I take inspiration from materials science and physics, and import a low-level understanding of devices to higher levels of abstraction.

Furthermore, I am committed to excellence and to creating safe spaces for collaboration and learning everywhere I go. I believe wholeheartedly that a culture centered on these principles starts at community engagement and betterment; you can find a few ways in which I am engaged in my community on my activities page.

Announcements.

🦡 In January 2025, I will be joining the ECE department at UW-M as an Assistant Professor in Solid State Devices, Quantum Systems, and Computer Systems & Architecture. On, Wisconsin!

📚 In September we will be presenting our logic synthesis work at the 2024 Applied Superconductivity Conference. See you in SLC!

📚 The 61st Design Automation Conference (DAC) will be showcasing our work on logic synthesis of superconducting circuits. See you in SF!

Race logic primitives and accelerators in SFQ5ee.

Cell abutment and high fan-out with Ic ranking in SFQ5ee.