Martin Karsten

Martin Karsten is a Professor at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, where he leads research in software systems and networking. His work focuses on finding simple approaches to building robust and efficient systems infrastructure. He teaches courses including Real-time Programming, Operating Systems, Distributed Systems, and Computer Networks.

His research explores fundamental patterns for software infrastructure design and redesigning systems using modular building blocks. Primary interests include system-level runtime systems (OS kernels, hypervisors), performance optimization through simplicity, and structural commonalities across software layers. Key research areas encompass system software, network architecture, network services, and network software.

Karsten holds a Diplom-Wirtschaftsinformatiker from Universität Mannheim and Dr.-Ing. from TU Darmstadt. His career includes positions as Assistant Professor (2002-2007), Associate Professor (2007-2020), and Professor (2021-present) at Waterloo, with administrative roles including Associate Director of the School since 2020. He maintains active collaborations through sabbaticals at SAP and visiting positions at TU Kaiserslautern.

He currently advises multiple graduate students in the MMath program and has contributed to open-source projects like libfibre (user-level threading) and KOS (experimental OS kernel). His professional service includes roles in academic integrity initiatives and conference organization.