Boon Thau Loo

Boon Thau Loo is the RCA Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in Electrical and Systems Engineering. He leads the NetDB@Penn research group and is an active member of the Distributed Systems Lab and the Penn database group. As the Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Education and Global Initiatives, he oversees academic programs and international collaborations.

• PhD in Computer Science (2006, UC Berkeley)
• M.S. in Computer Science (2000, Stanford University)
• B.S. in Computer Science with highest honors (1999, UC Berkeley)

Boon Thau Loo's research spans Distributed Systems, Blockchain, and Networking. Key areas include Byzantine Fault Tolerance, Smart Contracts, Network Provenance, and Cloud Infrastructure. His work addresses challenges in Internet-scale Query Processing, Data Management in Disaggregated Environments, and Security for Distributed Systems.

Recent publications focus on Adaptive Blockchain Systems, BFT Consensus, Smart Contract Optimization, and Distributed Transaction Processing. He explores Reinforcement Learning for Consensus, Data-dependent Order-Fairness, and Practical Declarative Networking to enhance scalability and security.

His accolades include the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching (2022), Spira Award for Excellence in Teaching (2021), and Best Paper at EDBT (2020). He has been recognized for NSDI Outstanding Paper (2024) and International Student Advocate of the Year (2024).

Boon Thau Loo has mentored 17 PhD students, 5 of whom have won dissertation awards. He co-founded two startups: Gencore Systems (Netsil), acquired by Nutanix Inc. (2018), and Termaxia, acquired by Frontiir (2020). He oversees Penn Engineering's 6,000 graduate students and has launched initiatives like MCIT Online, MSE-DS Online, and MSE-AI Online.