Kasra

Kasra Ferdowsi

I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Cubist, building robust and secure software with Rust and TypeScript.
I got my PhD in Computer Science in 2024 at UC San Diego. I was co-advised by Nadia Polikarpova and Sorin Lerner, and my research focused on Human-Centric Program Synthesis. I completed my Master's in Computer Science at UC San Diego in 2022, and my Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley in 2019.
You can find my CV here, reach me at kasra_ferdowsi@proton.me, or message me on Bluesky.

Research

Publications

  • Bottom-up Synthesis of Memory Mutations with Separation Logic
    ECOOP 2025

    Kasra Ferdowsi, Hila Peleg

    [paper]
  • Human-Centered Program Synthesis
    PhD Dissertation 2024

    Kasra Ferdowsifard

    [Dissertation]
  • Validating AI-Generated Code with Live Programming
    CHI 2024

    Kasra Ferdowsi, Ruanqianqian (Lisa) Huang, Michael B. James, Nadia Polikarpova, Sorin Lerner

    [Paper] [ArXiv] [Source Code]
  • ColDeco: An End User Spreadsheet Inspection Tool for AI-Generated Code
    VL/HCC 2023

    Kasra Ferdowsi, Jack Williams, Ian Drosos, Andrew D. Gordon, Carina Negreanu, Nadia Polikarpova, Advait Sarkar and Benjamin Zorn

    [Paper]
  • Investigating the Impact of Using a Live Programming Environment in a CS1 Course
    SIGCSE TS 2022

    Ruanqianqian (Lisa) Huang, Kasra Ferdowsi, Ana Selvaraj, Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj and Sorin Lerner

    [Paper] [Talk]
  • LooPy: Interactive Program Synthesis with Control Structures
    OOPSLA 2021

    Kasra Ferdowsifard, Shraddha Barke, Hila Peleg, Sorin Lerner, Nadia Polikarpova

    [Paper] [Talk] [Online Editor] [Source Code]
  • Small-Step Live Programming by Example
    UIST 2020

    Kasra Ferdowsifard, Allen Ordookhanians, Hila Peleg, Sorin Lerner, Nadia Polikarpova

    [Paper] [Talk] [Online Editor] [Source Code]

Other Writings

  • Towards Human-Centered Types and Type Debugging
    PLATEAU 2023

    Kasra Ferdowsi

    [Paper] [Slides]
  • The Usability of Advanced Type Systems: Rust as a Case Study
    Research Exam 2022

    Kasra Ferdowsi

    [Written Report] [Slides]
  • Programming by Partial Examples
    Class Project 2021

    Kasra Ferdowsifard and Ruanqianqian Huang

    [Class Report]

Talks

  • Exploring and Validating AI-Generated Programs Through Concrete Values
    2023

    Kasra Ferdowsi

    [Slides]

Teaching

Courses

Service

Mentorship

Volunteering