Rachit Nigam Pronunciation: Ruh-CHITH NI-gum. First name rhymes with “crutch-it”. is a PhD candidate studying computer science at Cornell University. He is a part of the CAPRA and PL@Cornell research groups and is advised by Adrian Sampson. His research (Dahlia, Calyx) is focused on building high-level programming models for designing hardware accelerators. He previously worked in the PLASMA research group at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with Arjun Guha.
Rachit started PLTea during PLDI ’20 in hopes of keeping social interactions alive during virtual conferences. PLTea has since been organized several times (ICFP ’21, SPLASH ’21, PLDI ’21) and has inspired spin-offs in other communities (ArchChat).
Gave invited talks to Brown PLT and Northeastern PRL.
Social chair for PLDI 2022.
Gave a guest lecture for Wellesley’s programming languages course.
Gave a talk on Calyx to the UW PLSE group.