Joseph M. Hellerstein

Joseph M. Hellerstein is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, College of Engineering. His research focuses on data-centric systems and their impact on computing, spanning database systems, distributed computing, data visualization, machine learning, and programming languages.

• Ph.D., Computer Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison (1995)
• MS, Computer Science, UC Berkeley (1992)
• AB, Computer Science, Harvard University (1990)

Key research areas include database management, distributed systems, cloud programming foundations, and human-data interaction. He has developed systems like Hydro (for distributed programming), Trifacta (cloud data engineering), and Anna (distributed key-value store). Recent work emphasizes progressive data processing, consistency models, and compiler-driven distributed systems.

Notable awards: ACM Fellow (2009), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (1998), multiple ACM-SIGMOD Test of Time Awards (2002, 2007, 2013, 2023), Jim and Donna Gray Teaching Award (2015), and IEEE VIS Test of Time Award (2022).

He has advised PhD students and contributed to industry through co-founding RunLLM and Trifacta (acquired by Alteryx). Current affiliations include the Berkeley Center for Responsible, Decentralized Intelligence (RDI) and EPIC Data Lab.