Hai Zhou is an associate professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Northwestern University and a member of the Center for Ultra Scale Computing and Information Security (CUCIS). His research interest is on Mathematical Engineering, where mathematical methods are used to construct computational structures (in the form of hardware, software, or protocol) and to verify their properties (e.g. correctness, robustness, and efficiency). In other words, he is interested in algorithm design, formal methods, and their applications to VLSI CAD, security, and other areas.

Dr. Zhou received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science and Technology from Tsinghua University, China in 1992 and 1994, respectively, and his Ph.D. degree in Computer Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999. He then spent two years at the Advanced Technology Group in Synopsys, Inc. Finally, he decided to move to the academia to "strive for perfection" (quote from Dijkstra) as an "intellectual being" (from Sylvester).

There is Pleasure sure,
In being Mad, which none but Madmen know!
- John Dryden "The Spanish Friar"

In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate. - R. Descartes

Pictures after all may be suitable only for very young children; Lagrange dispensed entirely with such infantile aids when he composed his analytical mechanics. - E. T. Bell

As from afar the magic notes of Mozart's music still gently haunt me.... They show us in the darkness of this life a bright, clear, lovely distance, for which we hope with confidence. O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, oh how endlessly many such comforting perceptions of a brighter and better life hast thou brought to our souls! - F. Schubert