Abrar Hossain

PhD Candidate in Computer Science
The University of Toledo · expected 2027

I am a PhD candidate in Computer Science at the University of Toledo, working on autotuning, compiler optimization (MLIR), and instrumentation for high-performance computing. My earlier Master’s research focused on power- and cost-aware HPC scheduling. I have worked as an intern and visitor at NCSA and NSF NCAR, building network monitoring and community-scale IoT data systems. I serve as an NSF ACCESS Student Champion and received the SGX3 Rising Star of the Year Award (2025).

On the academic & industry job market, 2027–28

Research

I work on making high-performance systems faster, easier to optimize, and more predictable.

Autotuning & compiler optimization

I work on learning-based autotuning for compilers and HPC systems, including reinforcement learning for MLIR loop transformations (LoopRL), transfer-aware Bayesian optimization, and bandit-based tuning for edge devices (LASP). I also study autotuning techniques across the HPC stack.

Instrumentation & performance analysis

I work on performance analysis of modern accelerators, focusing on dynamic instrumentation for dataflow architectures and congestion-aware GPU warp scheduling.

Reliable performance prediction

I work on risk-controlled multi-fidelity conformal prediction to improve the reliability of performance estimates using measurements with varying costs and accuracy.

Master's research

Power- and cost-aware HPC scheduling

I worked on power-aware HPC scheduling using graph neural networks (TARDIS), electricity cost optimization across HPC centers, auction-based network resource allocation, and scalable scheduling simulation using SST.

Publications

Under review

Structured Reinforcement Learning for Loop Transformation in MLIR

Abrar Hossain, Kishwar Ahmed

IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Internet Computing (CCGrid)CCGrid 2027

Universal Acquisition for Risk Certification with Informative Completion Times

Abrar Hossain, Kishwar Ahmed

ACM SIGMETRICSSIGMETRICS 2027

CAWS: Congestion-Aware Warp Scheduling for GPU Memory-NoC Bottlenecks

Faeghe Farrokhpey, Abrar Hossain, Kishwar Ahmed

ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles and Practice of Parallel Programming (PPoPP)PPoPP 2027

Autotuning Across the High-Performance Computing Stack: Hardware, Software, and Application Optimization Techniques

Abrar Hossain, Xingfu Wu, Jason Liu, Tapasya Patki, Kishwar Ahmed

ACM Transactions on Parallel ComputingACM TOPCJournal

2026

XOR Bidding and Knapsack Formulations for HPC Network Resource Allocation

Abrar Hossain, Kishwar Ahmed

Platform for Advanced Scientific Computing (PASC)PASC 2026

Dynamic Instrumentation for Dataflow Accelerators

Md. Azahar Alam, Abrar Hossain, Kishwar Ahmed

European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys)EuroSys 2026

2025

Power-Aware Scheduling for Multi-Center HPC Electricity Cost Optimization

Abrar Hossain, Abubeker Abdurahman, Mohammad Atiqul Islam, Kishwar Ahmed

Job Scheduling Strategies for Parallel Processing (JSSPP), held with IPDPSJSSPP 2025

Enhanced Intrusion Detection in IIoT Networks: A Lightweight Approach with Autoencoder-Based Feature Learning

Tasnimul Hasan, Abrar Hossain, Mufakir Qamar Ansari, Talha Hussain Syed

International Conference on Internet of Things, Big Data and Security (IoTBDS)IoTBDS 2025

An Interactive Learning Module for Introducing Parallel Computing

Abubeker Abdurahman, Abrar Hossain, Kishwar Ahmed

Topics in Parallel and Distributed Computing (TPCPD)TPCPD 2025Book chapter

Cross-HPC System Bayesian Optimization with Adaptive Transfer

Abrar Hossain, Kishwar Ahmed

SC: International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and AnalysisSC 2025Poster

Bandwidth Allocation for Heterogeneous HPC Data Ingestion using Dynamic Auctions

Abrar Hossain, Kishwar Ahmed

IEEE International Conference on e-ScienceeScience 2025Poster

2024

HPC Application Parameter Autotuning on Edge Devices: A Bandit Learning Approach

Abrar Hossain, Abdel-Hameed Badawy, Mohammad Atiqul Islam, Tapasya Patki, Kishwar Ahmed

IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing, Data, and Analytics (HiPC)HiPC 2024

Scalable HPC Job Scheduling and Resource Management in SST

Abubeker Abdurahman, Abrar Hossain, Kevin A Brown, Kazutomo Yoshii, Kishwar Ahmed

Winter Simulation Conference (WSC)WSC 2024

A Hands-On Approach To Teaching Parallel and Heterogeneous Computing

Abubeker Abdurahman, Arihant Singh, Abrar Hossain, Kishwar Ahmed

Workshop on Education for High-Performance Computing (EduHiPC), held with HiPCEduHiPC 2024Workshop

Environmental Data Sensing and Monitoring System Using Community-based Private LoRa Network

Abrar Hossain, Keith Maull, Agbeli Ameko

AGU Fall MeetingAGU 2024Poster

2023

Automating HPC Model Selection on Edge Devices

Abrar Hossain, Kishwar Ahmed

SC: International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and AnalysisSC 2023Poster

News

Jul 2026Panel member - Campus Champions, NAIRR, and the future of AI research facilitation in higher education at PEARC'26 in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Jul 2026Presented our work on Network Ingestion at PASC in Bern, Switzerland
May 2026Attended 2026 ESIIL Innovation Summit held at Boulder, Colorado
May 2026Attended 2026 Midwest RCD Workshop in Rosemont, Illinois
Mar 2026Attended 2026 BRICCS Pathway Workshop held at Alexandria, Virginia
Feb 2026Our work on Network Ingestion was accepted to PASC'26, to be held in Bern, Switzerland
Jan 2026Attended 2026 RMACC HPC Sys Admin Workshop held at UC Boulder
Oct 2025Awarded the SGX3 Rising Star of the Year Award for my research work
Sep 2025Our poster on Cross-System Autotuning was accepted at SC'25, to be held in St. Louis, Missouri
Aug 2025Received eScience 2025 NSF Travel Grant
Aug 2025Our work on Network Ingestion was accepted to eScience'25, to be held in Chicago, Illinois
Aug 2025Received Cluster 2025 NSF Travel Grant
Aug 2025Attended 2025 CI4FAIR Workshop held at Purdue University
Jul 2025Served as Session Chair for the Systems and Software Systems Track Session at PEARC'25
Jul 2025Served as Poster and Visualization Judge at PEARC'25
Jul 2025Served as Student Volunteer at PEARC'25
Jun 2025Started internship at NCSA, working with the NDTS team
May 2025Received UToledo Graduate Research Assistant Recognition Award
Apr 2025Attended Midwest RCD Workshop in Cleveland, Ohio
Mar 2025Our work on Power-Aware Scheduling was accepted to JSSPP'25, to be held in Milan, Italy
Mar 2025Received 2025 Midwest RCD Symposium Scholarship
Mar 2025Received 2024 Bangladesh Sweden Trust Fund Scholarship
Feb 2025Served as Reviewer for PEARC'25
Feb 2025Our paper on lightweight IIoT intrusion detection was accepted to IoTBDS'25
Dec 2024Presented my NSF NCAR openIoTwx project at AGU'24
Dec 2024Received 2024 IEEE HiPC TCPP Travel Grant
Nov 2024Received 2024 Friends Education Fund Scholarship
Nov 2024Received 2024 AGU Student Travel Grant
Oct 2024Our work on HPC Autotuning was accepted to HiPC'24, to be held in Bangalore, India
Oct 2024Received 2024 SIParCS Student Travel Grant
Jun 2024Our work on SST-based scheduling was accepted to WSC'24
May 2024Extended my tenure at NSF NCAR as a visitor
Mar 2024Started internship at NSF NCAR, working with the openIoTwx team
Sep 2023Our poster on lightweight HPC Autotuning was accepted at SC'23

Experience

Aug 2023 – present
Toledo, OH

Graduate Research Assistant

The University of Toledo

Developed TARDIS, a power-aware HPC scheduler using GNNs, cost reduction: 18% (temporal), 10-20% (spatial)
Developed LASP, a MAB-based HPC tuner on edge devices, achieving 2.5% average performance gain over default
Developed LoopRL, a reinforcement-learning MLIR loop transformation framework achieving up to 32.1× speedup

Jun 2025 – Aug 2025
Urbana, IL

Intern

National Center for Supercomputing Applications

Built parser for eBPF maps for 80+ VLANs and ports with configurable polling intervals via REST API
Integrated with InfluxDB for efficient storage and Grafana for real-time visualization
Added configurable logging, reducing manual reconfiguration time by 40%

Aug 2024 – Dec 2024
Remote

Visitor

NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research

Set up CouchDB, Chords, and Streampipes on ACCESS Jetstreams for community weather data storage
Built data orchestrator for efficient data routing, achieving 39% transmission efficiency gain
Reduced deployment costs by 22% for communities implementing the project

May 2024 – Aug 2024
Boulder, CO

Intern

NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research

Designed private LoRa network for 6+ data types with Raspberry Pi gateways and central server
Improved wind forecasting with edge-ML, achieving 26% accuracy gain on Raspberry Pi
Image analysis with TensorFlow, 23% accuracy gain, 3x faster training, and 93% precision on 10,000+ images

Education

2025 – Present (expected 2027)
Toledo, OH

PhD, Computer Science

The University of Toledo

2023 – 2025
Toledo, OH

M.S., Computer Science

The University of Toledo

2015 – 2019
Chittagong, Bangladesh

B.Sc., Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology

Talks

Environmental Data Sensing and Monitoring System Using Community-based Private LoRa Network

NCAR Mesa Lab, Boulder, CO · Aug 2024

Internship presentation on my summer research with Dr. Keith Maull and Agbeli Ameko.

video

Awards & grants

2025: SGX3 Rising Star of the Year Award
2025: University of Toledo Graduate Research Assistant Recognition Award
2025: Midwest RCD Symposium Scholarship
2024: CRA-WP Grad Cohort for IDEALS Scholarship
2024: Friends Education Fund Scholarship
2024: Bangladesh Sweden Trust Fund Scholarship

Travel & workshop grants

NSF Travel Grants: eScience 2025, Cluster 2025
Workshop Travel Grants: BRICCS Pathway'26, RMACC HPC Sys Admin'26, CI4FAIR'25, Midwest RCD (‘25, ‘26), RCD Nexus'26
SIParCS Student Travel Grant (2024, 2025)
USRSE25 Building Engagement (BE) Travel Grant (2025)
AGU Student Travel Grant (2024)
IEEE HiPC TCPP Travel Grant (2024)
SIGHPC PASC Travel Grant (2026)

Service

Program committees & reviewing

Reviewer, Future Generation Computer Systems
Reviewer, HPEC'25 – Extended Abstracts
PC Member, PEARC'26 – Tutorials and Workshops
PC Member, PEARC'25 – Short Papers, Tutorials and Workshops
PC Member, PEARC'25 – Posters and Visualization

Community

Student Champion for NSF ACCESS

Student volunteer

PASC'26 – Platform for Advanced Scientific Computing
PEARC'25 – Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing
HiPC'24 – International Conference on High Performance Computing, Data, and Analytics
AGU'24 – American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting