Jianguo Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University, joining in Spring 2021. His research focuses on database systems for the cloud and large language models, including disaggregated databases and vector databases. He holds a PhD from the University of California, San Diego, and has worked at Zilliz (Milvus) and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Education: PhD in Computer Science (UC San Diego, 2019), MPhil (Hong Kong Polytechnic University), BSc (Zhengzhou University) Research interests include Disaggregated Databases, Vector Databases for Large Language Models, and cloud-native systems. Notable work includes OpenAurora (an open-source Amazon Aurora prototype) and contributions to Milvus. He has received grants like the NSF CAREER Award and honors such as the IEEE TCDE Rising Star Award. Advising a team of students in database systems and teaching courses like CS592 (Disaggregated Database Systems) and CS440 (Large-scale Data Analytics). Serves on program committees for SIGMOD, VLDB, and ICDE.
Andy Pavlo is an Associate Professor with Indefinite Tenure in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science. He is an active member of the CMU Database Group and the Parallel Data Laboratory, where he leads research in database management systems with a focus on self-driving architectures, transaction processing, and large-scale analytics. His work bridges academic research and industry applications through projects like NoisePage, OtterTune (which he co-founded and served as CEO before it ceased operations), and Peloton. Dr. Pavlo's research interests span database management systems with particular emphasis on autonomous database architectures that can self-tune and optimize without human intervention. His work explores transaction processing systems that can handle high-throughput workloads while maintaining consistency, and large-scale data analytics techniques that efficiently process massive datasets. He has made significant contributions to query optimization, database extensibility, and automatic database tuning using machine learning techniques. His recent work on database extensibility revealed critical issues in PostgreSQL's extension ecosystem, showing that approximately 16% of extensions are incompatible with at least one other extension due to API violations and memory errors. His research output demonstrates a consistent focus on practical database systems challenges, with recent publications examining database extensibility, user-defined function optimization, and the cyclical nature of database research. The articles show a strong trend toward making database systems more autonomous, with increasing integration of machine learning techniques for automatic tuning and optimization. His work often combines deep theoretical analysis with practical implementation in open-source systems. Dijkstra Award 2024 for contributions to database systems research Dr. Pavlo actively mentors graduate students, with current advisees including Wan Shen Lim, William Zhang, and Sam Arch (co-advised with Todd Mowry). His former students have gone on to successful careers in both industry and academia. He has secured significant research funding through CMU's affiliate program with major database companies including ClickHouse, DataStax, dbt, Firebolt, MotherDuck, RelationalAI, SingleStore, Spiral, PingCAP/TiDB, Yellowbrick, and Yugabyte. His research is supported by these industry partnerships and likely includes NSF funding given his active participation in the database research community. At CMU, Dr. Pavlo leads the Database Group and organizes several seminar series including "SQL or Death," "Database Building Blocks," and "ML⇄DB Technical Talks." These seminars bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss cutting-edge developments in database systems. He also runs a summer research internship program that has attracted students for multiple consecutive years, indicating a strong research group with ongoing projects and funding.
Daniel Abadi is the Darnell-Kanal Professor of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park. He leads the Data Systems Lab at Maryland (DSLAM) and is widely recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to database system architecture and implementation. Previously, he was a faculty member at Yale University where he received the Provost's Teaching Prize. Abadi's research primarily focuses on database system architecture, particularly at the intersection with scalable and distributed systems. He is best known for developing the storage and query execution engines of the C-Store prototype (a column-oriented database system commercialized by Vertica and later acquired by Hewlett-Packard), HadoopDB research (commercialized by Hadapt and acquired by Teradata), and deterministic distributed transactional systems like Calvin (currently being commercialized by Fauna). His work bridges theoretical innovation with practical industrial impact. Analysis of his recent publications reveals a consistent trajectory toward solving fundamental challenges in distributed database systems. His research has evolved from foundational work on column-stores and hybrid database architectures to cutting-edge innovations in geo-replicated transactions, concurrency control mechanisms, and the integration of machine learning with database systems. The trend shows increasing focus on practical implementations that address real-world scalability and performance challenges in large-scale data processing environments. ACM Fellow Churchill Scholarship recipient NSF CAREER Award winner Sloan Research Fellowship recipient VLDB Best Paper Award winner Two VLDB Test of Time Awards (for C-Store and HadoopDB) 2008 SIGMOD Jim Gray Doctoral Dissertation Award 2013-2014 Yale Provost's Teaching Prize 2013 VLDB Early Career Researcher Award Professor Abadi has successfully mentored several PhD students, most notably Alexander Thomson and Jose Falerio, both of whom won the prestigious SIGMOD Jim Gray Doctoral Dissertation Award for their work under his supervision. His research has been generously supported by multiple NSF grants including BIGDATA awards and other funding mechanisms that have enabled significant advances in database technology. He actively collaborates with industry partners, with several of his research projects leading directly to commercial products. At the University of Maryland, Abadi directs the Data Systems Lab at Maryland (DSLAM), which focuses on developing innovative database technologies that address contemporary challenges in data management. The lab's research spans distributed transaction processing, database architecture, and the integration of database systems with emerging computing paradigms. Notable projects include SLOG (Serializable, Low-latency, Geo-replicated Transactions), which eliminates traditional tradeoffs in distributed database design, and ongoing work in deterministic database systems that provide strong consistency guarantees without sacrificing performance.
Xing Gao is an Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware, affiliated with the Department of Computer and Information Sciences and jointly with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His office is located at 316B FinTech Innovation Hub on the STAR Campus. He holds a PhD from the College of William and Mary (2018) and a BS from Beijing Institute of Technology (2011). Research Interests: Cybersecurity in Software Supply Chain, Web 3, High-Performance Computing, Large Language Models, with a focus on Security, Cloud Computing, and Mobile Computing. Education: PhD | 2018 | College of William and Mary BS | 2011 | Beijing Institute of Technology His recent work explores cybersecurity vulnerabilities in cloud gaming services (CCS'22), container registries (USENIX-SEC'22), and software supply chains, with specialized attention to GPU cache attacks (USENIX-SEC'24) and Ethereum smart contracts (WWW'24). His research spans theoretical and applied aspects of system security, including CI/CD pipelines (CCS'24), SDN backdoors (INFOCOM'23), and hardware-level threats (ACSAC'21). Scientific Awards NSF CAREER Award (2024) NSF CRII Award (2020) NDSS Distinguished Poster Award (2016) He serves as Registration Chair for ACM/IEEE Symposium on Edge Computing (2023) and Publicity Co-Chair for IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (2022). He is actively involved as TPC Member in multiple top-tier conferences including USENIX Security (2026,2025), CCS (2026,2025,2024), and IEEE DSN (2024). He has also reviewed for journals like IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing. Labs & Teams X-Lab at the University of Delaware, a research group focused on cybersecurity in emerging technologies.
Yannis Chronis is an incoming Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science , ETH Zurich (starting August 2025), where he will join the ETH Systems Group . Prior to this, he spent 3 years as a Systems Researcher at Google's Systems Research Group in Sunnyvale, USA. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (advised by Prof. Jignesh Patel) and a Bachelor's/Master's from the University of Athens, Greece (advised by Prof. Yannis Ioannidis). His research focuses on optimizing databases and data processing for modern hardware through software-hardware co-design. Key areas include database efficiency in memory-centric architectures, learned query optimizers, and cloud resource management. His work is supported by a Facebook Fellowship and has been recognized with the EDBT 2016 Medal for best paper. Teaching: Taught CS 564 - Database Management Systems at UW-Madison (Spring 2022). Service: Served on program committees for SIGMOD, VLDB, CIDR, and others, and chairs the CIDR Proceedings Committee. Key Publications: His recent work includes studies on memory-centric computing for databases, cardinality estimation benchmarks, and adaptive query processing techniques.
Peter Pietzuch is a Professor in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London, where he leads the Large-Scale Data & Systems (LSDS) group. He also serves as the Director of Research and is a Visiting Researcher at Microsoft Research Cambridge. Pietzuch holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and a B.A. from Girton College. His research spans distributed systems, cloud computing, big data processing, and systems security. Key interests include: Scalable architectures for cloud-native applications Efficient stream processing and machine learning systems Trusted execution environments and secure cloud infrastructure Optimization of serverless computing and distributed databases His recent publications focus on adaptive machine learning frameworks, secure cloud resource management, and high-performance stream processing systems. Trends show strong emphasis on hardware-software co-design, confidential computing, and fault-tolerant architectures. Awards include: Best Paper Award at Middleware'03 He actively advises PhD students and secures grants for projects like Faasm (serverless computing) and Teechain (blockchain security). His LSDS group collaborates with industry partners including Microsoft Research. Pietzuch teaches undergraduate and graduate courses including Scalable Systems for the Cloud and Operating Systems . He co-founded the ACM DEBS conference and serves on steering committees for EuroSys and Middleware.
Kyle C. Hale is an Associate Professor at Oregon State University's School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (College of Engineering). He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from Northwestern University (2016, 2013) and a B.S. in Computer Science from UT Austin (2010). Prior to joining Oregon State in 2024, he served as an Associate Professor at Illinois Tech in Chicago. His research spans operating systems, high-performance computing (HPC), virtualization, computer architecture, and system security. Current work focuses on specialized system software stacks for emerging computing paradigms like memory disaggregation and parallelism optimization. He leads the HExSA Lab and collaborates with the HiPCastor group. Scientific Awards: NSF CAREER Award (2023-2028) Illinois Tech College of Computing Excellence in Research (2023) Illinois Tech College of Computing Excellence in Teaching (2021) Illinois Tech Department of Computer Science Teacher of the Year (2020) EuroSys '22 Best Artifact Award Recent Research Trends: His publications emphasize compiler techniques for memory-disaggregated systems, optimizing parallel runtimes through hardware-software integration, virtualization at fine granularities, and accelerating machine learning workloads via system-level innovations. Keywords include HPC, virtualization, parallelism, and secure execution contexts. Teaching: Courses taught include Computer Architecture (CS/ECE 472), System Security (CSP 544), Operating Systems (CS 450), and advanced topics in serverless/edge computing. He actively recruits PhD students to the HExSA Lab.
Jishen Zhao is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego (Jacobs School of Engineering). His research focuses on computer architecture, non-volatile memory systems, and deep learning acceleration. Dr. Zhao has published extensively in top venues including ISCA, MICRO, ASPLOS, and IEEE Transactions. He collaborates with researchers at UCSD and beyond to advance systems for emerging applications in AI and autonomous vehicles. Dr. Zhao's primary research areas include persistent memory systems, hardware/software co-design for deep learning, and safety-critical computing. He develops techniques for crash consistency, memory disaggregation, and efficient neural network deployment. His work on autonomous vehicles addresses scenario generation and perception-aware system design. Recent projects explore LLM applications for software engineering and hardware verification. Analysis of Dr. Zhao's 2024-2025 publications reveals a strong shift toward AI-integrated systems research. He applies large language models to tasks like RTL verification and software issue localization while continuing to innovate in memory systems for serverless computing. There is growing emphasis on safety-critical systems for autonomous vehicles and energy-efficient neural network training using novel hardware architectures. Information about Dr. Zhao's scientific awards, advising activities, grants, and laboratory facilities was not available in the provided documentation.
Mehmet Esat Belviranli is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at the Colorado School of Mines, where he directs the High Performance Systems and Software Lab (HyperSys). His research focuses on increasing resource utilization in heterogeneous architectures through runtime systems, scheduling algorithms, and performance modeling, with publications in top venues including MICRO, PPoPP, and SC. Education: Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of California, Riverside (2016) M.S. in Computer Science, Bilkent University (2009) B.S. in Computer Science, Bilkent University (2006) Belviranli's research spans heterogeneous architectures, runtime systems, performance modeling, parallel programming, autonomous computing, deep learning acceleration, cyber-physical systems, and edge-cloud platforms. His work develops analytical models and programming abstractions to address resource management, scheduling, and security challenges in diversely heterogeneous systems, with applications in edge computing, autonomous systems, and machine learning acceleration. Recent projects emphasize real-world constraints and security implications. His publication trends reveal increasing focus on edge-cloud resource management (e.g., HARNESS), security vulnerabilities in heterogeneous systems (e.g., MC3), and deep learning acceleration under resource constraints. Key themes include memory contention modeling, scheduling for cyber-physical systems, and concurrent DNN execution, reflecting a shift toward practical deployment in security-sensitive edge environments. Scientific Awards: U.S. Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellowship Award (2022) U.S. Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellowship Award (2021) Oak Ridge National Laboratory Significant Event Award (2019) Best Paper Finalist, IEEE HPEC 2018 Outstanding Paper Award, DATE 2024 Belviranli mentors Ph.D. students Ismet Dagli (MLCommons Rising Star 2024, CGO'24 SRC finalist) and Justin Davis (DATE'24 Outstanding Paper Award winner). He has secured $2M+ in funding from NSF, DoE, and SRC, including an NSF-SaTC grant on mobile security (2024), a DoE grant on superconductive systems (2023), and an NSF FuSe grant on graphene nanoribbons (2023), often leading multi-institutional teams from Rochester, Virginia, Arizona, and Minnesota. The HyperSys Lab develops ecosystems for high-performance heterogeneous systems, with recent projects including HARNESS for edge-cloud resource management and MC3 for mobile SoC security. The lab has received equipment donations from Google Coral.ai and Xilinx, and collaborates with national labs on security challenges and next-generation semiconductor technologies.
Dr. Jia Zhang is the Inaugural Robert H. Dedman Jr. Endowed Department Chair and Professor of Computer Science at Southern Methodist University (SMU Lyle School of Engineering). She holds the Cruse C. and Marjorie F. Calahan Centennial Chair in Engineering and has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Operations Research and Engineering Management. Her research focuses on applying machine learning, natural language processing, and information retrieval to data science infrastructure, particularly scientific workflows, provenance mining, software discovery, knowledge graphs, cloud computing, immune AI, and applications in earth science and healthcare. Education: Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago M.S. in Computer Science, Nanjing University B.S. in Computer Science, Nanjing University Dr. Zhang's work emphasizes data science infrastructure and machine learning for scientific workflows and knowledge graphs. Her recent publications highlight deep learning , graph neural networks , and optimization algorithms in cloud computing, cybersecurity, and environmental applications. Key trends include spatiotemporal modeling , hybrid neural architectures , and AI-driven service ecosystems . Scientific Awards: Best Paper Awards IEEE SCC (2011, 2017) Best Student Paper Awards IEEE ICWS (2014, 2018), IEEE ICCC (2018) Distinguished Paper Award ICSOC (2023) First Outstanding Service Award IEEE Technical Committee on Services Computing (2016) She has secured over $5 million in federal grants (as PI) and $11 million as PI/Co-PI from NSF, NASA, NIH, UTSW, Ericsson, SAP, and Google. Her lab (Caruth Hall 308) actively recruits research assistants. She previously served as a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University, Northern Illinois University, and Nanjing University, and worked in industry as a software architect.
Emmett Witchel is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin , with research spanning computer architecture, systems, networking, security, and privacy . His work focuses on low-level systems optimization and secure concurrent execution. Research Interests: Concurrent systems, secure execution environments, GPU integration, distributed systems. Teaching: CS 380L (Advanced Operating Systems), CS 371M (Mobile Computing). Scientific Awards: Runner-up Best Paper, ASPLOS 2013 Runner-up Award for Outstanding Research, USENIX Symposium 2012 IEEE Micro Top Pick Award 2007 ACM Honorable Mention 2004 George M. Sprowls Award, MIT EECS 2004 Recent Publications demonstrate leadership in CXL pod databases ( Tigon ), stateful serverless computing ( Boki ), SmartNIC-accelerated file systems ( LineFS ), and GPU security ( Telekine ). His work bridges hardware-software co-design and practical systems implementation.
Heiner Litz is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science & Engineering Department at UC Santa Cruz's Baskin School of Engineering. He holds the Kumar Malavalli Endowed Chair of Storage Systems Research and serves as Director of the Center for Research in Storage Systems (CRSS). He is also a member of UCSC's Hardware Systems Collective (HSC). Litz earned his PhD from Mannheim University and previously held positions at MIT, Google, and Stanford University. His research focuses on computer architecture and systems optimization , specifically improving hardware-software interfaces for data center workloads. Key areas include microarchitectural mechanisms (branch prediction, prefetching, cache design), profile-guided optimizations, and storage/disaggregated memory systems. His work bridges compiler techniques and hardware efficiency for emerging cloud applications. Recent publications emphasize profile-guided optimization across microarchitecture layers, storage scalability, and resource allocation in distributed systems. Trends include hardware-software co-design for data centers, RDMA-based protocols, and real-time control systems. Awards & Honors: Kumar Malavalli Endowed Chair of Storage Systems Research Best Paper Award at MICRO (2022) IEEE Micro Top Picks (2019, 2023) Best Paper Awards at ICPP (2008) and ARC (2009) Advising & Grants: He currently advises 11 PhD students and has graduated 8 MS/PhD students. Research is supported by NSF, Intel, Samsung, Google, Meta, Nutanix, HPE, ARM, Marvell, Cerabyte, Western Digital, and Broadcom. Labs & Teams: Directs CRSS, focusing on storage systems innovation, and collaborates with HSC on hardware-software integration projects.
Roxana Geambasu is an Associate Professor at Columbia University's Department of Computer Science, with affiliations to the Software Systems Lab and the Cybersecurity Committee . She specializes in systems security, differential privacy, and resource management for modern computing environments. PhD: University of Washington (2011) Undergraduate: Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Romania Her research focuses on integrating differential privacy as a first-class computing resource in infrastructure systems, with key contributions in: Privacy Budget Management (PrivateKube, DPack, Turbo) Web & Mobile Privacy (Cookie Monster, Big Bird) Security Abstractions (POSIX, Vanish, XRay) Article trends show a strong emphasis on differential privacy (8/15), resource scheduling (5/15), and privacy-preserving advertising (3/15). Key subfields include budget optimization, browser APIs, and ML pipeline privacy. Scientific awards include: Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship NSF CAREER Award Google Ph.D. Fellowship in Cloud Computing Best Paper Awards at SOSP, EuroSys She advises M.S. and undergraduate students, teaching courses in Distributed Systems and Privacy Curriculum . Her lab develops tools like PixelDP and Sunlight for operationalizing privacy in real-world systems.
Danyang Zhuo is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Duke University, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, with expertise in datacenter/cloud computing and machine learning systems. He joined Duke in 2020 after postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley under Ion Stoica and a PhD at the University of Washington advised by Tom Anderson and Arvind Krishnamurthy. Education: PhD in Computer Science (University of Washington, 2019) His research focuses on improving cloud infrastructure through systems like Phoenix (application-level abstractions) and Phantora (GPU cluster simulation). Recent work explores LLM verification, tensor compression via video codecs, and fairness in LLM serving. His 15 most recent publications span operating systems, machine learning, and networked systems conferences like HOTOS, NSDI, SIGCOMM, and OSDI. Scientific honors include NSF CAREER Award (2023), USENIX Security Distinguished Paper (2023), and multiple industry research awards. He has secured major NSF grants for projects including "OS-Managed Remote Procedure Call" and "Campus-level RDMA Networking." At Duke, he advises PhD students and teaches courses such as Introduction to Operating Systems (CompSci 310) and Systems for Machine Learning (CompSci 590.05). His work appears in leading conferences and journals, with collaborations across institutions including UC Berkeley, University of Washington, and industry partners.
Tariq Iqbal is an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia , with joint appointments in the Department of Systems and Information Engineering and Department of Computer Science . He leads the Collaborative Robotics Lab (CRL) , specializing in human-robot teams and embodied AI . Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT's CSAIL , advised by Prof. Julie Shah , and earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of California San Diego (UCSD) under Prof. Laurel Riek . Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of California San Diego (2017) M.S. in Computer Science, University of Texas at El Paso (2012) B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (2007) His research lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence and robotics , focusing on human-robot collaboration in dynamic environments. Key areas include motion prediction , multimodal fusion , trust modeling , and collaborative learning . His work integrates cognitive science and deep learning to enhance robotic fluency in naturalistic settings. Recent publications (2023–2025) highlight advancements in human-robot team dynamics , multimodal dataset creation , and motion prediction algorithms . Notable works include Energy-Based Transformers for scalable AI, PoseTron for motion prediction, and Accessible Navigation Mapping for assistive robotics. These contributions span trust modeling , cloud robotic infrastructure , and safety in close-proximity collaboration . National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM) Innovation Award As faculty, he has secured grants from NSF and AFOSR , mentored research students, and taught courses like Stochastic Modeling I (SYS 6005) and Robots and Humans (SYS 4582/6465, ECE 4502/6465, CS 6465) . His prior industry roles at IBM Watson Lab and Grameenphone Ltd. inform his applied research in telecom infrastructure and cognitive robotics . He leads the Collaborative Robotics Lab (CRL) at UVA, which develops multimodal datasets , real-time coordination algorithms , and adaptive pathfinding systems . Current projects explore human motion prediction , team synchrony , and embodied question-answering , reflecting his commitment to advancing human-robot fluency and contextual AI .
