Junrui Liu

I am a 5th-year Computer Science PhD student at UC Santa Barbara, advised by Yu Feng. I am interested in all things related to programming languages, especially in verification and synthesis.

I received my undergraduate degree from Vassar College, and my M.S. from Yale University.

Email  /  GitHub  /  LinkedIn  /  Bluesky

Publications & Manuscripts

("+" means equal contribution)

Tabby: A Synthesis-Aided Compiler for High-Performance Zero-Knowledge Proof Circuits

Refinement Types for Visualization

Certifying Zero-Knowledge Circuits with Refinement Types

Conflict-Driven Synthesis for Layout Engines

Learning Contract Invariants Using Reinforcement Learning

Tree Traversal Synthesis Using Domain-Specific Symbolic Compilation

A Study of HTTP/2's Server Push Performance Potential

Teaching

Instructor 🧑‍🏫

Teaching Assistant 🧑‍💻

Awards 🏆

• Teaching Assistant of the Year, UCSB Department of Computer Science, 2025
• Outstanding Teaching Assistant, UCSB College of Engineering, 2024 [press]
• Outstanding Teaching Assistant, UCSB College of Engineering, 2023 [press]

Certificates and Training ✅

• Certificate in College and University Teaching, UCSB
• Lead TA Institute, UCSB
• Summer Teaching Institute for Associates, UCSB

Talks & Tutorials

• Polymorphism, Curry-Howard, and Program Verification (guest lecture for CS162 @ UCSB)
• Formal Verification for Zero-Knowledge Proofs (Applied ZK Workshop @ SBC'22)
• Introduction to Interactive Theorem Proving in Coq (0xPARC Summer Residency 2022)
• Refinement Types and Program Verification (guest lecture for CS162 @ UCSB)

Personal

I enjoy playing music, and am currently studying the carillon with Wesley Arai. I occasionally post my progress videos here. Previously, I studied organ with Gail Archer. Random stuff: Solver-Aided Chorale Composition (poster).

I'm a moderate weeb and speak (not so jyozu) Japanese. I enjoy watching owarai and anime, listening to radio, and reading Murakami.

Design and source code from [1] and [2]