After my PhD, I'm looking for roles that value principled systems work. Reach out if you know of interesting opportunities.
I build compilers and runtime systems for concurrent programming abstractions, and expect to complete my PhD in September 2026.
My doctoral research focuses on compiling lexical effect handlers, developed through our research language, Lexa.
My thesis is supervised by Yizhou Zhang.
Earlier, I worked on microarchitectural security at Penn State University
with Danfeng Zhang.
Publications
Cong Ma, Jonghyun Jung, Yizhou Zhang
Lexical Effect Handlers: Fast by Design, Correct by Proof
Doctoral Symposium 25Cong Ma
Zero-Overhead Lexical Effect Handlers
OOPSLA 2025Cong Ma, Zhaoyi Ge, Jonghyun Jung, Yizhou Zhang
Lexical Effect Handlers, Directly
OOPSLA 2024Cong Ma, Zhaoyi Ge, Edward Lee, Yizhou Zhang
Quantifying and Mitigating Cache Side Channel Leakage with Differential Set
OOPSLA 2023Cong Ma, Dinghao Wu, Gang Tan, Mahmut Taylan Kandemir, Danfeng Zhang
Talks
Awards
- 2025 SIGPLAN PAC Travel Grant
- David R. Cheriton Graduate Scholarship
- 2024 OPLSS Fellowship Grant
- 2024 MWPLS Travel Grant
- PSU CSE Teaching Assistant Award
Service
Organizer: Ontario Programming Languages Seminar (ONPLS) 2025