I am a Research Scientist at the Systems Group in the Department of Computer Science of ETH Zurich under the supervision of Prof. Michal Friedman. My work is at the intersection of programming languages, memory management, parallel programming and next-generation computing platforms. I am exploring how emerging technologies can improve performance in systems that do not yet fully exploit available hardware. The aim is to show that these technologies can help applications beyond their most widely discussed use cases.
I finished both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at ETH Zurich with a major in Secure and Reliable Systems. I completed both my Practical Work and Master’s Thesis with Prof. Michal Friedman, which helped me develop a deeper understanding of the topic I’m currently working on.
For students
If you want to have a discussion, you can send me an email at pstefanov@ethz.ch with your transcripts + CV attached. You can expect a quick response.
What I offer
Having completed both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at ETH Zurich, I understand the practical ins and outs and the challenges students encounter: unclear expectations, unnecessary overhead, uncertainty, and stress.
You can expect:
- Clear criteria from the start, so you know what good progress looks like.
- No-bullshit explanations, including why a task matters and what it contributes to the project.
- Open communication about priorities
- A kind and understanding supervision style that aims to reduce avoidable overhead and leave time for real work
- Project alignment where possible with your own learning and career goals.
What I am looking for
Proactive students: I want for a student to understand what a real scientific work actually looks like. This entails that many decisions should be made by the student themselves on what change would bring the highest ROI for the project. Also, that means coming up with possible solutions rather than asking only open-ended questions.
Ambitious students: I am looking for students that want to leave a mark on the scientific community by having their name on a paper that gets published in a top-tier conference
Curious students: Publishing a paper should not be for the sake of it but in order to help the scientific community and open doors that did not exist before. However, what makes a publication meaningful and helps get there by sustained work is curiosity.
Previous students
If you want to know what it is like to be working with me, get in touch with previous students I’ve supervised