Summary
Yifan Yuan is a Senior Research Engineer with eight years of experience advancing computer architecture and cloud systems, currently working on AI systems co-design at Meta. He specializes in bridging hardware and software for cloud infrastructure, focusing on CXL, RDMA, NFV, smartNICs, accelerators, and programmable switches to boost performance, efficiency, and scalability. Yifan earned his MS and PhD from UIUC, where his research on in-network computing, I/O, and memory subsystems led to multiple top-tier publications and several US patents. Before Meta he contributed to systems architecture at Intel Labs and spent time at Microsoft Research, bringing both industrial and academic perspectives to pathfinding projects. He combines deep research rigor with practical prototyping—an often-overlooked strength that helps move novel ideas from papers to deployable platforms.
8 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
Tianjin Yaohua High School
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, computer architecture and systems, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, computer architecture and systems at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Bachelor of Engineering - BE, electronic and computer engineering, Bachelor of Engineering - BE, electronic and computer engineering at Zhejiang University
Chinese, English