[LJ Genie] Database-internals grad work?

[maradydd]

A dear friend is thinking about going to grad school (could be an MS, could be a PhD, depends on what they'll let him get away with), focusing on database internals (the query planner and executor, to be precise). Aside from "Tom Lane's office", anybody got any tips on places he should be considering? He has a bachelor's in CS from McGill and several years of solid industry experience; I figure he should be a shoo-in for a top program. However, I do not know what the top programs are.

jrtom, you were saying good things about UC Irvine, weren't you? I know Berkeley has some interesting work going on with streaming databases, but is that just something they specialise in, or do they have a solid database-backend team?

Comments

[enochsmiles.livejournal.com]

Well, if he wants to move into data-mining, it's really hard to beat Leuven...

[ephermata.livejournal.com]

You should have him talk to my friend Christine about the berkeley program. she's a grad student in DB here.

[neoliminal.livejournal.com]

Carnegie Mellon University

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Anyone in particular he should talk to there?

[neoliminal.livejournal.com]

I don't know specifically, but if you contact rapier1 here he will know.

[enochsmiles.livejournal.com]

I've got some contacts at CMU. Mostly in the privacy/security space, but I'm sure they know DB people.

[ben.livejournal.com]

I think he should skip grad school and work for a company like Oracle. :)

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Heh. It's a thought, but given where he works currently, I suspect he'd find Oracle a bit stifling.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

The one DB guy I know at UCI is Sharad Mehrotra; I know more about data mining/machine learning people there, but it sounds like that's not his intended focus.

Drop me an email if you want to hear what little I can tell you about Sharad.