Short Bio

Dr. Yu Liu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Clarkson University. Prior to joining Clarkson University, he was a research scientist at the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) from 2013 through 2017. In addition, he was employed at Motorola as a senior software engineer from 2003 through 2007, and IBM from 2011 through 2013. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Sichuan University in 2000 and 2003, respectively, and his Ph.D. degree from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2011. His research interests include high-performance computing, computer architectures, real-time systems, and wireless sensor networks. He has published 60 peer-reviewed research papers. Also, he has been awarded 6 National Science Foundation (NSF) grants as the PI/co-PI.

TASChips Project Website Please visit our project website for more information about my current NSF-funded research project.

NSF Featured Research Story TASChips research was featured by the NSF for enabling faster, cooler, and longer-running chips through physics-enforced, reduced-order learning thermal analysis.

Professional Experience

  • Associate Professor, Clarkson University, February 2024 - Present
  • Assistant Professor, Clarkson University, August 2017 - February 2024
  • Research Scientist, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, September 2013 - August 2017
  • Software Developer, IBM, March 2011 - September 2013
  • Senior Software Engineer & Project Leader, Motorola, July 2003 - August 2007

Education

  • Ph.D., Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2011
  • M.S., Sichuan University, 2003
  • B.S., Sichuan University, 2000

Research Grants

  • National Science Foundation (NSF) Award #2513861: Elements: TASChips: Thermal Analysis of Semiconductor Chips with High Efficiency, Accuracy and Resolution Enabled by Physics-Aware Reduced-Order Learning Techniques, Amount: $597,316, August 15, 2025 – July 31, 2028 (Estimated). PIs: Yu Liu, Ming-Cheng Cheng
  • National Science Foundation (NSF) Award #2244049: REU Site – High Performance Computing with Engineering Applications, Amount: $425,321, February 1, 2023 – January 31, 2027 (Estimated). PIs: Yu Liu, Daqing Hou
  • National Science Foundation (NSF) Award #2118079: CyberTraining: Pilot: Employing Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) and High-Performance Computing (HPC) in Advanced CI, Amount: $315,998, September 1, 2021 – August 31, 2024. PIs: Daqing Hou, Ming-Cheng Cheng, Yu Liu
  • National Science Foundation (NSF) Award #2111318: Collaborative Research: Supporting Project-Based Learning in Undergraduate Software Engineering Courses, Amount: $384,630, May 15, 2021 – April 30, 2025. PIs: Daqing Hou, Yu Liu, Jan DeWaters
  • National Science Foundation (NSF) Award #2003307: CDS&E: An Effective Thermal Simulation Methodology for GPGPUs Enabled by Data-Driven Model Reduction, Amount: $383,000, July 1, 2020 – June 30, 2023 (Estimated). PIs: Ming-Cheng Cheng, Yu Liu
  • National Science Foundation (NSF) Award #1852102: REU Site – High Performance Computing with Engineering Applications, Amount: $379,931, February 15, 2019 – January 31, 2023. PIs: Daqing Hou, Yu Liu
  • Clarkson Ignite Research Innovation Fund - COVID-19 Special Solicitation, Analyzing and Mitigating Polarization in Social Media to Fight against COVID-19 Pandemic, Amount: $60,000, July 1, 2020 – June 30, 2022 (Estimated). PIs: Golshan Madraki, Yu Liu, Jeanna Matthews

Current Graduate Students

  • Junqi Chen (co-mentored with Prof. Ming-Cheng Cheng), M.S. Northwestern University, B.S. Wenzhou-Kean University

Past Graduate Students

  • Lin Jiang (Ph.D. 2023 Fall, co-mentored with Prof. Ming-Cheng Cheng), M.S. University of Science and Technology of China，B.S. Wuhan University, First Employer: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
  • Anthony Dowlings (Ph.D. Student, co-mentored with Prof. Ming-Cheng Cheng), M.S./B.S. Clarkson University

Current Undergraduate Students

Past Undergraduate Students

  • Thomas Hogeboon (Clarkson University, co-mentored with Prof. Ming-Cheng Cheng), 2025 Fall and 2026 Spring Research Supported by NSF REU grant
  • Neil He (Yale University, co-mentored with Prof. Ming-Cheng Cheng), 2024 Summer and Fall Research Supported by NSF REU grant
  • Junzhe Li (University of Buffalo, co-mentored with Prof. Ming-Cheng Cheng), 2023 Summer and Fall Research Supported by NSF REU and CyberTraining grants
  • Hayley Leonard (Quinnipiac University), 2022 Summer Research Supported by NSF REU grant
  • Jiaqian Liu (University of Buffalo, co-mentored with Prof. Daqing Hou), 2021 Summer Research Supported by NSF REU grant
  • Kayla Ruttan (Clarkson University, co-mentored with Prof. Ming-Cheng Cheng), 2020 Summer Research Supported by NSF REU grant
  • Frank Swiatowicz (Vassar College), 2019 Summer Research Supported by NSF REU grant
  • Jhonatan Carbajal Palacios (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, co-mentored with Prof. Ming-Cheng Cheng), 2019 Summer Research Supported by NSF REU grant
  • Kiranpreet Birdee (McMaster University), 2017 Summer Research Supported by the Funding from the Government of Canada
  • Boone Tensuda (Ph.D. Student, University of Toronto), 2016 Summer Research Supported by the Funding from the Government of Canada
  • Jacob Siemons (University of Waterloo), 2016 Summer Research Supported by the Funding from the Government of Canada
  • Michael Nishimura (University of Waterloo), 2015 Spring & Summer Research Supported by the Funding from the Government of Canada

Patent

  • Yu Liu, Liqian Li, Karen Colins, Michael Nishimura, System and Method for Indirectly Monitoring One or More Environmental Conditions (U.S. Patent Number 11,067,710)

Selected Publications

  • Neil He, Ming-Cheng Cheng, Yu Liu, PyPOD-GP: Using PyTorch for accelerated chip-level thermal simulation of the GPU, SoftwareX, Elsevier, Volume 30, 2025.05
  • Anthony Dowling, Lin Jiang, Ming-C. Cheng, Yu Liu, Regulating CPU Temperature with Thermal-Aware Scheduling Using a Reduced Order Learning Thermal Model, Future Generation Computer Systems, Elsevier, Volume 166, 2024.12
  • Lin Jiang, Anthony Dowling, Yu Liu, Ming-C. Cheng, Ensemble learning model for effective thermal simulation of multi-core CPUs, Integration, Elsevier, Volume 97, 2024.4
  • Lin Jiang, Anthony Dowlings, Ming-Cheng Cheng, Yu Liu, PODTherm-GP: A Physics-based Data-Driven Approach for Effective Architecture-Level Thermal Simulation of Multi-Core CPUs, IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol. 72, Issue 10, 2023.5
  • Lin Jiang, Yu Liu, Ming-Cheng Cheng, "Fast Accurate Full-Chip Dynamic Thermal Simulation with Fine Resolution Enabled by a Learning Method", IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, Vol. 42, Issue 8, 2022.12
  • Lin Jiang, Anthony Dowling, Yu Liu, Ming-Cheng Cheng, “Chip-level Thermal Simulation for a Multicore Processor Using a Multi-Block Model Enabled by Proper Orthogonal Decomposition”, 2022 IEEE ITherm Conference, San Diego, CA, USA, 2022.5 Best Paper Award
  • Lin Jiang, Anthony Dowling, Yu Liu, Ming-Cheng Cheng, “Exploring and Efficient Approach for Architecture-Level Thermal Simulation of Multi-core CPUs”, IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) 2022, Austin, Texas, USA, 2022.5
  • Lin Jiang, Yu Liu, Ming-Cheng Cheng, “An Effective and Accurate Data-Driven Approach for Thermal Simulation of CPUs”, IEEE Itherm 2021, Virtual due to COVID-19, 2021.6
  • Tao Xu, Yu Liu, Tong Liu, Gang Li, Nusret Aydemir, "Multiphysics Modelling of Background Dose by Systemic Targeted Alpha Therapy", Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences, Vol. 49, Issue 3, 2018.9
  • Karen Colins, Liqian Li, Yu Liu, "Analysis of a Statistical Relationship between Dose and Error Tallies in Semiconductor Digital Integrated Circuits for Application to Radiation Monitoring over a Wireless Sensor Network", IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. 64, Issue 5, 2017.5
  • Yu Liu, Wei Zhang, "Scratchpad Memory Architectures and Allocation Algorithms for Hard Real-Time Multicore Processors", Journal of Computing Science and Engineering, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2015.6
  • Yu Liu, Wei Zhang, "Exploiting Multi-level Scratchpad Memories for Time-predictable Multicore Computing", 30th IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD’12), Montreal, QC, Canada, 2012.10
Last Updated on May. 16, 2026 9:18pm EST