Ryan Marcus

Ryan Marcus is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on integrating machine learning into data management systems to create adaptive tools that optimize hardware utilization, invent novel processing strategies, and interpret user intentions. Currently based in Office 407, Amy Gutmann Hall, he actively explores query optimization, index structures, intelligent clouds, programming language runtimes, program synthesis for data processing, and reinforcement learning applications to systems challenges.

• Key research themes include machine learning for databases, learned query optimization, intelligent cloud systems, and blockchain adaptability.
• Scientific achievements include the Best Paper Award at SIGMOD '21 for the Bao system and the development of AutoSteer, a cross-database learned query optimizer.

Notable PhD advisees co-advised include Peizhi Wu (with Zack Ives), Jeffrey Tao (with Andrew Head), and Zixuan Yi (with Zack Ives). His recent work, presented at venues like VLDB and SIGMOD, emphasizes scalable LLM-augmented data systems (ScaleLLM), robust cardinality estimation, and adaptive Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus (BFTBrain). For full system evaluations, he created testing environments such as BFTGym.

Contact: rcmarcus@seas.upenn.edu