Computer Science and Software Engineering Department

Computer Engineering Department

College of Engineering

Advising

I am recruiting students for senior projects and master's advising for the 2026-2027 school year. I am mostly open to projects that align well with my on-going work. See Research for more information on the types of projects I normally do. However, I could be convinced to work on another project along these same lines. Feel free to come chat with me if you have a project idea or are interested in something that you think I would be interested in.

In particular, I am looking for a student to continue the work on "The Treadmill of Doom", a senior project that a former student started. It's a treadmill that runs Doom, where you control your control your character by actually walking on the treadmill.

Office Hours - Spring 2026

Location

14-214 or calpoly dot zoom dot us/my/stephen dot beard (Preference given to those in person)

Finals Week Times

• Monday 1:10 pm - 3 pm
• Tuesday 1:10 pm - 3 pm

No office hours on Monday 4/13 and Wendesday 4/15 due to travel.

Times

These are subject to change given student desire and my availability.

• Monday 10:10 am - 11 am
• Monday 2:10 pm - 3 pm
• Wednesday 9:10 am - 10 am
• Wednesday 2:10 pm - 3 pm
• Or any (reasonable) available time upon request. See my calendar for availability (change to week view on the top right). Open spaces are available, tentative spots are meeting invites I haven't accepted yet.

Senior Project Meeting Times

• N/A
• Or, any of the office hours times above, though note some preference will be given to students seeking help with classwork during normal office hours

Bio

Stephen R. Beard is an Assistant Professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department with a joint appointment in the Computer Engineering Department. Stephen's educational goal is to develop opportunities for diverse sets of students to get hands on experience with security, architecture, languages, and compilers. Stephen's research interests primarily revolve around security that involves the hardware-software boundary. This manifests in lots of ways, in particular, cyber-physical security, secure architectures, secure language design, and secure compilation.

As a former transfer student and beneficiary of a great deal of invaluable mentorship throughout his life, Stephen participates in multiple mentoring and advising programs. While many of these are focused on transfer students, he is interested in improving the lived experience of all students. His door is always open if you ever need advice, someone to just listen to you, or just want to chat!

Stephen received his PhD and MS degrees in Computer Science at Princeton University, under the guidance of David I. August as a proud member of the Liberty Research Group. Stephen received his BS degree in Computer Engineering from Cal Poly!