Computer Science & Applied MathematicsUniversity of California, Los Angeles
01 / AboutLos Angeles, California
Hello, I’m
Elliot Cao.
A little curiosity. A lot of questions.
I study Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at UCLA. I’m interested in programming languages, correctness by construction, and scalable verification for complex, automatically generated software and data.
02 / ResearchQuestions, methods, and contributions
Research.
Long term, I would like to work on either programming languages that make strong correctness guarantees easier to obtain by construction, or scalable verification systems that can check increasingly complex and automatically generated software/data.
Programming languagesFormal verificationSpecification synthesisVerifier-guided generationVerifiable AI agentsQuantum programming languages
Research experience
Papers & publications
03 / InternshipJune – September 2026
Ideas into practice.
Engineering software that people use to design the next generation of electronic systems.
Software Engineering Intern
Keysight Technologies
Advanced Design System (ADS) Platform Team
Calabasas, California
I worked across C++, Python, and Rust in a mature engineering codebase, contributing production features, investigating reliability issues, and exploring how AI can support electronic design workflows.
01
Product engineering
Implemented customer-requested 3D visualization and automation features, and resolved defects across ADS.
02
Live notebook integration
Designed an embedded Jupyter kernel integration so external notebooks could safely interact with live ADS application state, providing a foundation for future official Jupyter integration.
03
Reliability & debugging
Investigated application crashes and MCP server defects through instrumentation and source-code analysis.
04
AI-assisted design research
Evaluated MCP automation, AI placement and routing, and agent memory and scaffolding strategies. Conducted competitive analysis of JITX and Quilter, and presented industry and academic research to inform future development.