Intel internship leads to award-winning ISCA tutorial

Reese Kuper is no stranger to internships – even before starting his graduate studies at the department of electrical and computer engineering, the third-year graduate student in computer engineering has been taking every opportunity he can to explore the world of industry. 

This summer, Kuper’s appointment as a Graduate Research Intern with Intel led to an unforgettable experience. Not only did he attend his first in-person conference, the International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA) in Orlando, Florida, Kuper also co-created and presented an award-winning on-chip accelerators tutorial at ISCA. 

During his internship Kuper worked with on-chip accelerators for Intel’s data centers, carrying out performance analysis to test their features and highlight how they can be used. This complemented his graduate research, as he says: “It was pretty straightforward to make that jump, the skill set was already there.” Kuper’s year-long internship took place alongside his graduate studies, but the overlap between the Intel work and his own research meant the workload was manageable (although the late-night calls with the international team took some getting used to). 

Over the past year Kuper has learned a lot about the industry perspective on producing and marketing accelerators. He had the opportunity to interact directly with people who worked on the devices, and worked with a team spanning multiple continents. Still, the highlight of this particular internship experience was presenting a tutorial at his first in-person ISCA conference.

The half-day tutorial at ISCA was a collaboration between multiple teams at Intel and members of The Grainger College of Engineering. From the Grainger Engineering side, the project was led by ECE Professor and W.J. ‘Jerry’ Sanders III – Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Endowed Chair Nam Sung Kim. The team also included ECE alumnus and Intel research scientist Yifan Yuan, and UIUC postdoctoral research associate Ipoom Jeong. They presented Intel’s new accelerator technologies to the research community, highlighting the key benefits and potential uses. The team’s effort was recognized by a prestigious Intel Divisional Recognition Award.

Professor Nam Sung Kim comments: “Based on my own industry experience, I recognize the importance of promoting new technologies to the research community. This is another excellent example of a successful industry-university collaboration, with university researchers positively impacting the industry, and I am glad that Intel recognized such an effort.”