Alexa Vanhattum
Assistant Professor Of Computer Science at Wellesley College
Greater Boston United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolAlexa Vanhattum is an assistant professor of computer science at Wellesley College with 11 years of industry and academic experience spanning systems, compilers, and verification. She earned a PhD from Cornell and brings production engineering experience from Apple, Microsoft, and AWS to her research and teaching. Her open-source work includes contributions to Wasmtime’s Cranelift backend and the Kani Rust verifier, where she improved register allocation, immediate handling, and vtable/verification checks—work that bridges low-level code generation and formal verification. She also contributed to educational compiler tooling (Bril), implementing optimizations and interpreter enhancements that reflect a strong practical grounding in compiler internals. Known for blending rigorous research with hands-on system fixes, she frequently moves ideas from prototype tests into upstream projects. Based in Greater Boston, she combines classroom leadership with active participation in influential open-source runtimes and verification tooling.
11 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Computer Science, Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Computer Science at Brown UniversityDoctor of Philosophy - PhD, Computer Science, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Computer Science at Cornell University
Github Skills (24)
verification10
model-checking10
intermediate-code10
code-generation10
compiler-compiler10
cbmc10
intermediate-language10
compiler-optimization10
compiler10
webassembly10
rust10
test-automation10
cran10
testing9
python9
Programming languages (13)
Github contributions (5)
model-checking/kani
Jun 2021 - Jan 2022
Kani Rust Verifier
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer / Test Automation Engineer
Back-end Developer / Test Automation EngineerContributions:158 reviews, 33 commits, 47 PRs in 7 months
Contributions summary:Alexa primarily contributed to the development and testing of the Kani Rust Verifier. They updated the CBMC version checks, refactored code related to dynamic trait handling, and fixed issues related to duplicate vtable field names. Furthermore, the user implemented vtable size/align checks and added new tests, enhancing the robustness and reliability of the verification process.
model-checkingrustverifierverificationrust-lang
bytecodealliance/wasmtime
Feb 2022 - Jan 2023
A lightweight WebAssembly runtime that is fast, secure, and standards-compliant
Role in this project:Backend Developer & Test Automation Engineer
Backend Developer & Test Automation EngineerContributions:21 reviews, 5 commits, 13 PRs in 11 months
Contributions summary:Alexa primarily contributed to the Cranelift code generation component of the WebAssembly runtime, focusing on optimizing and fixing register allocation and immediate value handling for different architectures (x86_64, aarch64). They introduced and modified filetests to validate code generation correctness, particularly related to immediate value optimization. Furthermore, they upstreamed an ISLE verifier prototype, indicating involvement in testing and verification processes.
securejitcraneliftrustruntime
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