Saiful Islam
I’m a Ph.D. student in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, advised by Douglas Thain in the Cooperative Computing Lab.
I build systems that make scientific workflows portable across HPC sites. A workflow that runs on one cluster often breaks on the next, because the software, data, and site rules all differ. My work handles each piece. Floability packages a workflow with its software, data, and compute needs into a portable “backpack.” A declarative data layer fetches and caches datasets, so the same workflow runs unchanged anywhere. Evidence-backed site profiles, built with LLM agents that read the documentation, capture the rules each HPC site enforces.
Before my Ph.D., I spent six years as a software engineer, most recently as a Senior Software Engineer leading a development team.
Away from the cluster, I’m usually chasing a good cup of coffee. My ideal weekend starts with beans I picked up on a trip, hand-ground and brewed slowly over a V60. I listen to a lot of folk and country music, and I fall asleep to audiobooks most nights.
