Beth Trushkowsky

Beth Trushkowsky is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Harvey Mudd College. Her research focuses on integrating human computation into database systems, with a particular emphasis on adaptive query processing and scalable data management. She leads an NSF-funded project on Adaptive Query Processing for Crowd-Powered Database Systems, exploring how human computation can enhance query execution efficiency in hybrid systems.

Her research interests include crowdsourcing, scalable databases, and cloud computing. Notable work includes the Dynamic Filter algorithm (HCOMP 2017), which uses adaptive scheduling to optimize crowd-powered query processing. She has also contributed to systems like CrowdQ for crowdsourced query understanding and SCADS for distributed storage scalability.

Dr. Trushkowsky teaches courses such as Database Systems (CS 133) and Computer Systems (CS 105). She has advised numerous undergraduate researchers, including Harry Aung, Flora Gallina-Jones, and Cienn Givens, through NSF-funded projects and campus initiatives. Her work has been recognized with a Best Paper Award at ICDE 2013.

Key collaborations include projects with Tim Kraska, Michael J. Franklin, and Purnamrita Sarkar on crowdsourcing enumeration queries. Her lab’s research has been presented at venues like the AAAI Conference on Human Computation and the Tapia Diversity in Computing conference.