Mark D. Hill is the John P. Morgridge Chair and Gene M. Amdahl Professor of Computer Sciences and Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He served as computer sciences department chair from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2017.

Dr. Hill's research targets computer design and evaluation. He has made contributions to parallel computer system design (e.g., memory consistency models and cache coherence), memory system design (caches and translation buffers), computer simulation (parallel systems and memory systems), software (e.g., page tables and cache-conscious optimizations), deterministic replay and transactional memory. For example, he is the inventor of the widely-used 3C model of cache behavior (compulsory, capacity, and conflict misses) and co-inventor of the cornerstone for the C++ and Java multi-threaded memory specifications (sequential consistency for data-race-free programs).

Hill's current research is mostly part of the Wisconsin Multifacet Project that seeks to improve the multiprocessor servers that form the computational infrastructure for Internet web servers, databases, and other demanding applications. The Multifacet work focuses on using the transistor bounty provided by Moore's Law to improve multiprocessor performance, cost, and fault tolerance, while also making these systems easier to design and program. Recent and ongoing work includes:

• Largely eliminating virtual memory overheads for big-memory workloads
• Developing memory consistency models for general-purpose GPU computing
• Obtaining the power saving of virtual caches without discarding compatibility
• Supporting die-stacked caches
• Distributing the gem5 simulator
• Explaining memory consistency and cache coherence