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David M. Brooks

Faculty
  • Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science

Associate Professor

David M. Brooks

Contact Information

Office: Maxwell Dworkin 141
Email: dbrooks [ AT ] eecs [ DOT ] harvard [ DOT ] edu
Office Phone: (617) 495-3989
Assistant: Joanne Bourgeois
Office: Maxwell Dworkin Building 143
Email: jbourge [ AT ] seas [ DOT ] harvard [ DOT ] edu
Office Phone: (617) 495-2719
Office Fax: (617) 495-2489

Websites

Education

  1. B.S., 1997, Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California
  2. M.A., 1999, Electrical Engineering, Princeton University
  3. Ph.D., 2001, Electrical Engineering, Princeton University

Research Areas

  1. Computer Science: Networking and Systems
  2. Electrical Engineering: Computer Engineering

Research Profile

Professor Brooks' research focuses on the interaction between the architecture and software of computer systems and underlying hardware implementation issues. A major focus of his research has been to explore how lower-level design issues such as power dissipation and chip cooling can be modeled and addressed when making early-stage architectural decisions in computer systems.

Exploring new architectures and software techniques that are aware of energy, temperature, and other lower-level design metrics is extremely important when designing modern computer systems. New emphasis on computer systems that optimize design metrics besides raw performance, such as battery life, form-factor, and cost-efficiency provide many new challenges for system designers. As the underlying technology continues to evolve, new design issues arise and existing challenges become more difficult. In many cases, architectures that are aware of these issues provide superior overall solutions.

Professor Brooks' recent work has focused on linking architectural performance simulators with early stage power and temperature models. The methodology behind this work has been applied to academic research tools such as Wattch. Similar tools have been developed and used within industry, both for research and in early stage ower-analysis of product designs.