Anjali Pal

About

I am a fourth-year PhD student in the PLSE group at the University of Washington. Zach Tatlock is my advisor.

My research area is programming languages, with a focus on compilers and verification. I am interested in developing tools and techniques that make it easier to build flexible, fast, and correct compilers for a wide variety of domains.

Research

Publications

OOPSLA 2023 Equality Saturation Theory Exploration à la Carte
Anjali Pal, Brett Saiki, Cynthia Richey, Ryan Tjoa, Amy Zhu, Oliver Flatt, Max Willsey, Zachary Tatlock, Chandrakana Nandi
paper | slides | talk | code

Talks

Spring 2026 Fast and Flexible Program Optimization with E-Graphs (slides)
Williams College
Reed College
Spring 2025 Flexible Theory Exploration with Equality Saturation (slides)
Whitman College

Teaching

Summer 2025 Programming Languages Univeristy of Washington
Autumn 2024 Programming Languages
(Co-instructed with Zach Tatlock) 		University of Washington
Winter 2024 Software Design & Implementation
(Co-instructed with Zach Tatlock) 		University of Washington

Teaching Assistantships

Winter 2023 Programming Languages University of Washington
Spring 2017 A First Byte of Computer Science Brown Univeristy
Autumn 2016 Programming Languages
(Head Teaching Assistant) 		Brown Univeristy
Spring 2016 Logic for Systems Brown Univeristy
Autumn 2015 Intro. Functional Programming
(Head Teaching Assistant) 		Brown Univeristy
Spring 2014 Intro. Object Oriented Programming Brown Univeristy
Autumn 2014 Intro. Functional Programming Brown Univeristy

Guest Lectures

Spring 2025 Modeling for Computer Systems Wellesley College
Logic for Systems Brown Univeristy
Spring 2024 Web Browser Engineering University of Washington
Modeling for Computer Systems Wellesley College
Logic for Systems Brown Univeristy
Fall 2023 Software Engineering Brown Univeristy
Spring 2023 Logic for Systems Brown Univeristy
Spring 2022 Software Engineering Brown Univeristy

Industry

June 2024 -
June 2025		 Sandia National Laboratories
Research Intern
I worked with John Bender on an extension to CompCert.
January 2019 - January 2022 Code.org
Software Engineer
I spent three challenging and rewarding years building block-based programming environments to support all of Code.org's K-12 Computer Science curricula. A highlight of my time at Code.org was the opportunity to work closely with and learn from CS education experts.
Some projects I'm particularly proud of are:
  • I built and launched the data library and analytics tooling that backs the data processing unit of AP Computer Science Principles
  • I built and launched Poetry Hour of Code
  • I was the primary engineer and designer for Code.org's migration from a years-old fork of Blockly to the most recent release. I also managed the successful partnership between Code.org and Google's Blockly team.
September 2017 - January 2019 Google
Engineering Residency
I spent about six months each working on Android Maps and Cloud Storage Security & Privacy Infrastructure.

Service

Autumn 2025 UW CSE Pre-Application Mentoring Service
Co-Chair
Spring 2025 PNW PLSE
Co-Chair
Autumn 2024 UW CSE Pre-Application Mentoring Service
Mentor
Summer 2024 SPLASH OOPSLA 2024
Artifact Evaluation Committee
Spring 2024 PNW PLSE
Co-Chair
CSE 492R: Undergraduate Research Seminar
Grad Student Panelist
Winter 2024 SPLASH OOPSLA 2024
Artifact Evaluation Committee
Spring 2023 PNW PLSE
Co-Chair

Writing

Contact

Email: anjalip@cs.washington.edu

Github: ajpal