Teodora (Thea) Fields Collin

(teoc at mit dot edu; teoc at csail dot mit dot edu; github; Room 32-G788)

I am a PhD student affiliated with the COMMIT group at MIT CSAIL where I am advised by Prof. Saman Amarasinghe. My broader research interests are at the intersection of compilers, programming languages, scientific computing, computer algebra, and numerical analysis. In particular, I am interested in building domain specific languages that allow scientists to write efficient simulations without too much effort. I want to improve science per op. I prefer my domains and scientists to use a lot of mathematics; for example, finite element methods are particularly close to my heart. Right now, I am particularly interested in languages for high level linear and relational algebra across many domains.

I recieved my undergraduate degree in applied mathematics from the University of Chicago where I worked on a DSL for the visualization of finite element solutions. I was advised by Gordon Kindlmann, L. Ridgway Scott, Charisee Chiw, and John Reppy. I worked on the Diderot Language. I was part of the VIS-PL Lab.

Peer Reviewed Publications

  1. UniTe: A Universal Tensor Abstraction for Capturing Spatial Relationships (TACO 2026, second author, with Jessica Ray, Vivienne Sze, Albert Reuther, and Saman Amarasinghe) [ACM]
  2. The Continuous Tensor Abstraction: Where Indices Are Real (OOPSLA 2025, third author, with Jaeyeon Won, Willow Ahrens, Joel S. Emer, and Saman Amarasinghe) [ACM] [arXiv]
  3. Finch: Sparse and Structured Tensor Programming with Control Flow (OOPSLA 2025, second author, with Willow Ahrens, Radha Patel, Kyle Deeds, Changwan Hong, and Saman Amarasinghe) [ACM] [arXiv]
  4. Point Movement in a DSL for Higher-Order FEM Visualization (first author, with Charisee Chiw, L. Ridgway Scott, John Reppy, and Gordon L. Kindlmann) [IEEE] [arXiv] [slides]

Thesis

  1. Automated Finite Elements (S.M. Thesis, MIT, 2025) [PDF]

Under Submission

  1. Grassmann: The Coordinate Independent Linear Algebra Programming Language (Submitted to OOPSLA, with Gilbert Bernstein, Oded Stein, and Saman Amarasinghe)
  2. Extensible Programmatic Specification of Finite Element Methods (Submitted to TOG, with Gilbert Bernstein, Oded Stein, and Saman Amarasinghe)
  3. An Adaptive Savitsky-Golay Filter for Smoothing Finite Element Computation (Submitted to SISC) [arXiv]

Workshops

  1. Intermediate Abstractions for Global Finite Elements [PDESOFT26]
  2. A Programming Language for coordinate free linear algebra [PDESOFT24]
  3. Tensor Computations: Applications and Optimization [Dagstuhl Seminar 22101]
  4. Workshop on Parallel Computing Frameworks for FEM [BCAMATH19]
  5. Diderot: A Domain-Specific Language for Visualizing FEniCS Functions [FEniCS18] [Abstract]

Advised Theses

  1. Ricardo Gayle Jr - Halide in Molecular Dynamics [MIT MENG]
  2. Richard P. Sollee III - An Intermediate Representation for Expressing and Optimizing Computations in Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics. [MIT MENG]
  3. Steven N. Raphael - Specifying, Tiling, and Fusing Complex Reductions [MIT MENG]
  4. Shreya Chaudhary - Towards a Flexible Python Framework for Developing Domain-Specific Languages [MIT MENG]

Other Written Work

  1. Random Matrix Theory [UChicago Math REU 2016]
  2. The Finite Element Method and Curved Boundaries [UChicago Math REU 2017]

Fellowships

  1. MIT Presidential Fellow (2020)
  2. NSF GRFP (2022-2027)

Service

  1. ACDA21 (Subreviewer)
  2. ACDA24 (Subreviewer)
  3. OOPLSA24 (Subreviewer)
  4. PLR24 (Reviewer)
  5. PLR25 (Reviewer, Program Chair)
  6. PLR26 (Reviewer)

Collaborators and Collaborative Projects

I collaborate a lot and work on too many things. Here are some projects and people whom I work with.

  1. Finch.jl with Willow Ahrens, Changwan Hong, Jaeyeon Won, Kylee Deeds, Radha Patel, and many others.
  2. Sybil (FEM) with Gilbert Bernstein and Oded Stein
  3. A DSL for LQCD with the MIT contingent of the NPLQCD collaboration.
  4. Various activities in CESMIX, a PSAAP-III center.
  5. Various activities in CHEFSI, a PSAAP-IV center.
  6. I have probably forgotten something important.

Collaborators and Collaborative Projects

I contribute to open source and intend to open source all my projects. I've contributed to Firedrake, Halide, Spack, and Finch.jl among others.

For Undergraduates looking for MEngs and UROPs

I keep a list of open UROP/MEng projects here.

Other Stuff

I run the Linear Algebra and Programming Languages Reading group at MIT. I really enjoy sci-fi (e.g. The Culture Novels, Terra Ignota), philosophy of science (e.g. Against Method, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions), and grand strategy games (e.g. EU4, CK3). I participate in several groups that enjoy similar things, most notably the MIT Graduate Sci-fi book club. My favorite branches of mathematics are Functional Analysis and Numerical Analysis. Fixed point theorems are the best. Somehow I also love SQL. If you are interested in any of the above, feel free to ping me.

I used to go by another name (Teodoro (Teo)) because I and many other people made a mistake: we all thought I was a man. Thankfully I am transitioning now.