Natacha Crooks

Natacha Crooks is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at the University of California, Berkeley, within the College of Engineering. She is a founding member of the Sky Computing Lab, a member of the Data Systems and Foundations Group, and part of the Berkeley Center for Responsible, Decentralized Intelligence (RDI).

Her educational background includes:

• Ph.D. in Distributed Systems from the University of Texas (2019)
• BA in Computer Science and Law from the University of Cambridge (2012)

Natacha's research focuses on the intersection of distributed systems, databases, and security. Her work addresses fundamental challenges in database management systems, operating systems, and networking, with particular emphasis on performance isolation, fault tolerance, and decentralized intelligence. She explores how to build robust, efficient distributed systems that can handle modern computational demands while maintaining security and reliability through frameworks like delayed fair sharing and Byzantine fault tolerance mechanisms.

Her scientific contributions have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards:

• Sloan Research Fellow (2025)
• IEEE CS TCDE Early Career/Rising Star Award (2024)
• Okawa Research Grant (2023)
• VMware Early Career Faculty Award (2022)
• ACM SIGOPS Dennis M. Ritchie Doctoral Dissertation Award (2020)
• NSF CAREER Award
• SIGMOD Jim Gray Doctoral Research Award Honorable Mention

Natacha actively mentors graduate students and has advised multiple Master's students whose research has resulted in significant technical reports. She maintains strong industry connections through her role as a visiting researcher at Azure Research, Security & Privacy, and through previous advisory positions at Improbable on their metaverse project and at Astronomer. Her research is supported by various grants including the NSF CAREER Award and Okawa Research Grant, plus she received a 2023 Amazon Research Award for her work on graph database transactions.

She leads research initiatives through the Sky Computing Lab and contributes to the Data Systems and Foundations Group at Berkeley, focusing on next-generation distributed systems and database technologies. Her work bridges theoretical foundations with practical implementations to address real-world challenges in cloud computing, performance isolation, and decentralized systems, with applications in both academic and industrial contexts.