About Me

I am an associate professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at UW, since January 2022.

I graduated with a Ph.D. (Dr. sc. ETH) in Computer Science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, in October 2012. Prior to that I graduated (Dipl.-Inf.) from the Carl-von-Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany in 2006 with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Music. Prior to my position in the Allen School, I was an assistant professor at UT Austin, since 2016.

Students and Postdocs

I have the honor to be advising a number of exceptional graduate students and postdocs:

Graduated students and postdocs (and where they went):
  • Deukyeon Hwang, Ph.D. (Microsoft)
  • Aditya Kamath, Ph.D. (Google)
  • Antoine Kaufmann, Ph.D. (MPI-SWS)
  • Youngjin Kwon, Ph.D. (KAIST)
  • Cody Littley, MSc (Nutanix)
  • Ming Liu, Ph.D. (UW-Madison)
  • Syed Akbar Mehdi, Ph.D. (Google)
  • Dhathri Purohith, MSc (Confluent)
  • Kevin Puthusseri, MSc (Google)
  • Amanda Raybuck, Ph.D. (UC Davis)
  • Rajath Shashidhara, Ph.D. (Google)
  • Tim Stamler, Ph.D. (NVIDIA)
  • Theano Stavrinos, Ph.D. (Databricks)
  • Zezhou Wang, MSc

Research

My research interests are in Operating Systems and Networks. My current research projects are in low latency, scalable, and energy-efficient data center system and cloud application design, across the hardware/software continuum. Yes, I work on and with AI, too.

You can find recent and ongoing projects on the web pages of the various centers and groups that I am either leading or am involved with. In particular, FOCI, SyFI, and SDS.

Teaching

Spring 2027: CSE481A Operating Systems Capstone
Fall 2026: CSE453/M553 Data Center Systems
Spring 2026: CSE481A Operating Systems Capstone
Fall 2025: CSE453/M553 Data Center Systems
Spring 2025: CSE481A Operating Systems Capstone
Spring 2024: CSE481A Operating Systems Capstone
Fall 2023: CSE453/M553 Data Center Systems
Spring 2023: CSE481A Operating Systems Capstone
Fall 2022: CSE453/M553 Data Center Systems
Spring 2022: CSE599 Datacenters
Fall 2014: PMP Graduate Operating Systems (CSEP551) with Andrew Baumann (MSR)

Vita and Publications

Please, read my CV. It has all of the information and I keep it updated. I also have a Google Scholar page, if you prefer a quick overview of my publications, but it typically lags behind my CV.

Personal

I was born in Oldenburg, situated in north-west Germany, and enjoyed living a good deal of my youth in the cozy area of Bad Zwischenahn. In my teenage years, I used to be active in the Demoscene, a computer art subculture and I have fond memories of the good old times.

Apart from CS, I enjoy making, listening, and moving to music. I have an alter ego as a home producer (composition, lyrics, mix, cuts/scratches, raps, the works). I also enjoy going skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer.