Pankaj Mehra

Pankaj Mehra is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Jack Baskin School of Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). He is affiliated with the Storage Systems Research Center (SSRC), now succeeded by the Center for Research in Storage Systems (CRSS). Alongside his academic role, he is the Founder and CEO of Elephance Memory, Inc., and serves as Workstream Lead for Computational x Programming (x = Memory or Storage) at the OpenCompute Project.

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Former Faculty, IIT Delhi
• Adjunct Faculty, University of California, Wright State University
• Computer Scientist, NASA Ames Research Center
• Founder, HP Labs Russia
• Executive Roles: SVP & WW CTO at Fusion-io; VP at Samsung, SanDisk, Western Digital

Pankaj Mehra's research centers on next-generation memory and storage systems. His work explores disaggregated memory architectures, computational storage, non-volatile memory (NVM), and data-centric operating systems. He investigates how to optimize data placement, improve system performance through intelligent caching, and restructure computing models around emerging memory technologies like CXL and persistent memory. His recent publications focus on far memory, tiered memory systems, and offloading computation to storage devices.

His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on memory disaggregation, computational storage, and non-volatile memory systems. Themes include rethinking data and pointer management in distributed memory environments, resource allocation in tiered systems, and designing operating systems that treat data as a first-class citizen. His work bridges academic research and industrial innovation, often involving collaboration with leading researchers at UCSC.

• Samsung R&D Award (2019)
• CES R&D Innovation Award (2021)
• Terabyte Sort Trophy by Jim Gray (1998)
• TPC-C Cluster Performance Records (1997)

Pankaj Mehra has advised and collaborated with numerous researchers and engineers across academia and industry. His work has been supported by affiliations with HP Labs, Fusion-io, Samsung, and now Elephance Memory, Inc. He has led major research and development initiatives, including SmartSSD at Samsung and foundational work on persistent memory at HP. He has also contributed to standards efforts through the InfiniBand Trade Association.

He has been a key contributor to the UCSC Storage Systems Research Center (SSRC/CRSS), collaborating with faculty and researchers including Ethan L. Miller, Heiner Litz, and Daniel Bittman. His industry leadership at Elephance Memory, Inc. and involvement in the OpenCompute Project further extend his influence in shaping future data infrastructure technologies.