Gerald Balekaki

Gerald Balekaki is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Computer Science at Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech). He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Cape Town, specializing in computational radio astronomy and scientific database modeling. His academic journey includes an MSc in Data Communication and Software Engineering from Makerere University, Uganda, and a Bachelor of Statistics with specialization in Statistical Computing, also from Makerere University.

Professor Balekaki's research focuses on designing scalable databases for managing large scientific datasets, with emphasis on real-time support and advanced analytics. His work integrates intelligent models into very large databases (VLDBs), particularly in the context of radio astronomy data from the MeerKAT telescope. He explores query optimization in specialized database systems and high-performance computing architectures.

He actively teaches core computer science courses at Illinois Tech, including object-oriented programming, data mining, database organization, and accelerated introductory courses. His GitHub repository showcases contributions to database systems development, including a sample MySQL database implementation.

• Affiliations: Illinois Tech, ACM, IEEE, IITPSA, ISOC
• Research Areas: Databases, High-Performance Computing, Computer Networks
• Teaching: CS 115, CS 116, CS 201, CS 422, CS 425, CS 525