Welcome to the Parallel and Distributed Systems Laboratory (PADSYS Lab). We are part of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida.

Our research focuses on understanding, modeling, designing, and building real-world computer systems. We work on scalable, efficient, and secure systems for modern computing, with an emphasis on parallel and distributed computing, high-performance communication and I/O, and heterogeneous infrastructures spanning CPUs, GPUs, DPUs, and others. Our recent efforts explore next-generation communication libraries, data movement optimization, and system support for large-scale AI and HPC infrastructures.

We are particularly interested in enabling emerging workloads through co-design across systems, algorithms, and architectures, with strong considerations of performance, scalability, and security. We also collaborate closely with domain scientists to address interdisciplinary challenges in areas such as agriculture, neuroscience, and beyond.

Join Us

We are looking forward to working with self-motivated Ph.D., M.S., and undergraduate students with research interests in parallel and distributed computing systems. Ph.D. students will be supported by full scholarships to cover the tuition fees and living expenses.

Please feel free to contact Prof. Xiaoyi Lu if you have interest.

Links

You can find any of our research projects here.

You can find any of our publications here.

You can find any of our developed software here.

Lab Photos

PADSYS Lab 2025 Photo
(The photo was taken at UC Merced SE2 building in Nov. 2025.)

The Parallel and Distributed Systems Laboratory (PADSYS Lab) was founded in 2018 by Prof. Xiaoyi Lu when he began his faculty career at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University (OSU). In 2021, the lab moved to the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, Merced, marking the next phase of its development. In 2026, PADSYS Lab joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida, where it continues to expand its research and impact.

Prior to founding PADSYS Lab, Prof. Xiaoyi Lu was a core member and research scientist in NOWLab@OSU, led by Prof. D. K. Panda.

PADSYS Lab is dedicated to understanding, modeling, designing, and building real-world computer systems, with a focus on scalable, efficient, and secure computing infrastructures.

Join Us

We are always looking for self-motivated Ph.D., M.S., and undergraduate students interested in parallel and distributed computing systems and related areas. Ph.D. students are typically supported through full scholarships covering tuition and living expenses.

Please feel free to contact Prof. Xiaoyi Lu if you are interested in joining the lab.

Lab Photos

The following photos show a brief journey of PADSYS Lab since 2019.

PADSYS Lab 2025 Photo
(The photo was taken at UC Merced SE2 building in Nov. 2025.)


PADSYS Lab 2023 Photo
(The photo was taken at UC Merced SE2 building in April 2023.)


PADSYS Lab during COVID-19
(The photo was taken online in 2022 during COVID-19.)


PADSYS Lab during COVID-19
(The photo was taken online in 2020 during COVID-19.)


PADSYS Lab Photo
(The photo was taken at OSU Dreese Lab building in 2019.)

Selected Awards, Honors, and Recognitions

  • Amazon Research Award – Amazon Inc., 2025.
  • Best Poster Candidate - International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC), 2025.
  • Best Paper Award Nomination – The 38th IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS), 2024.
  • NSF CAREER Award – National Science Foundation, 2024.
  • Affiliated Faculty – AgAID Institute, Agricultural AI for Transforming Workforce and Decision Support, funded by NSF and USDA-NIFA by the AI Research Institutes Program, July 2023 — now.
  • Amazon Research Award - Amazon Inc., 2023.
  • Google Research Award - Google LLC, 2022.
  • Meta/Facebook Faculty Research Award - Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly named Facebook Inc.), 2022.
  • R1 Graduate Research Fellowship - University of California, Merced (UC Merced), 2022.
  • Best Paper Award Nomination - International Symposium on Benchmarking, Measuring, and Optimizing (Bench), 2019.
  • Best Paper Award Nomination - IEEE International Symposium on Workload Characterization (IISWC), 2019. )
  • Best Student Paper Award Finalist - The 32nd International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC), 2019.
  • Best Paper Award - International Symposium on Benchmarking, Measuring, and Optimizing (Bench), 2018.
  • Best Poster Paper Award - International Supercomputing Conference (ISC), Architecture & Networks Track, 2018.
  • Best Student Paper Award - The 10th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC), 2017.
  • Best Paper Award Nomination - The IEEE International Conference on Cluster Computing (Cluster), 2014.
  • Best Student Paper Award - The IEEE International Conference on Cluster Computing (Cluster), 2013.
  • Outstanding Graduates (Ph.D.) of Beijing - Beijing Municipal Commission of Education, 2012.
  • Best Paper Award - The 9th IEEE International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing with Applications (ISPA), 2011.
  • Outstanding Student Award - Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2010.
  • Director Scholarship - Institute of Computing and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2010.

This is a collection of popular press coverage for the work done by PADSYS members.

  • UC Merced News - Amazon Funds Research into Making AI More Efficient
  • 2025 Amazon Research Award - Accelerating large language and reasoning model workloads with AWS Trainium
  • UC Merced News - Boosting AI and Science: NSF Invests $600K in OpenDOTA Project at UC Merced
  • UC Merced News - UC Merced Directs Program to Train Quantum Science Workforce
  • UC Merced VISTA News - UC Merced Researchers are Helping Advance Digital Twins in Scientific Computing
  • Hpcwire News - DOE’s ALCC Program Awards ALCF Computing Time to 16 Projects
  • UC Merced News - CAREER Award Funds High-Performance Computing Research
  • UC Merced News - Department of Energy Grant will Fund EECS Professor Lu's Research into Improving Federated Machine Learning
  • 2022 Meta Faculty Research Award - Efficient GDR-based Communication Schemes for Distributed DLRM Training
  • 2022 Amazon Research Award - Scaling Collective Communication for Distributed Deep Learning Training on AWS
  • UC Merced News - Xiaoyi Lu Publishes Book on High-Performance Computing
  • Chameleon Cloud - Performance Analysis of Deep Learning Workloads Using Roofline Trajectories on Chameleon
  • InsideHPC - Accelerating TensorFlow with RDMA for High-Performance Deep Learning
  • InsideHPC - High-Performance Big Data Analytics with RDMA over NVM and NVMe-SSD
  • InsideHPC - Building Efficient HPC Clouds with MCAPICH2 and RDMA-Hadoop over SR-IOV IB Clusters
  • TDAI-OSU - Provide big data computing expertise for neuroscience in NSF spoke project

Email

Xiaoyi Lu (Lab Head): FNLN AT ufl DOT edu

Mailing Address

Parallel and Distributed Systems Laboratory (PADSYS)

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering

University of Florida

5000 Malachowsky Hall, 1889 Museum Road, Gainesville, FL 32611