Magdalena Balazinska

Assistant Professor

Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Washington

Office: 550 Paul G. Allen Center (detailed mail and street addresses).
Phone: 206-616-1069
Fax: 206-543-2969
email: magda at cs dot washington dot edu

I am a member of the database group at UW and the co-founder of the Northwest Database Society (NWDS).

Short bio

Magdalena Balazinska is an assistant Professor in the department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. Magdalena's research interests are broadly in the fields of databases and distributed systems. Her current research focuses on distributed stream processing, sensor and scientific data management, and cloud computing. Magdalena holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2006). She is a Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellow (2007), received the Rogel Faculty Support Award (2006), and a Microsoft Research Graduate Fellowship (2003-2005).

Research

My interests are broadly in the fields of databases and distributed systems. My current work focuses on stream processing, RFID data management (graphical event specification, probabilistic event extraction, event management, applications), and scientific data management in cloud computing environments.

Current Projects

• Scientific data management in the cloud (website coming soon).

  Data management systems and techniques for handling large volumes of data using cloud-computing environments, with a special emphasis on scientific applications.

• Lahar: Markovian Stream Processing.

  We are developping algorithms and a system for efficiently managing and querying correlated, uncertain, ordered data. We call such streams Markovian streams.

• Moirae: Exploiting history in monitoring applications.

  Monitoring applications enable users to continuously observe the current state of a system (e.g., car traffic conditions, a computer network, a cluster of servers). Although the current state of the system is the focus of monitoring applications, when events of interest occur, historical information is usually necessary to explain these events and determine appropriate responses. In this project, we are exploring techniques for complementing real-time monitoring information with different types of historical data.

• RFID Ecosystem: Experimenting with a pervasive RFID-based infrastructure.

  We are deploying and experimenting with a building-wide RFID-based tracking infrastructure. The goal of this project is to overcome the intrinsic limitations of the technology to provide useful applications while respecting users' privacy.

Past Projects

• PEEX: Probabilistic Event EXtractor for RFID data.
• FlowDB: Using relational databases in network forensic analysis.
• StreamClean: Making sense of a noisy world.
• HomeViews: Helping home users organize and share their data.
• Distributed stream processing with Borealis and Medusa.
• Study of user mobility patterns and network utilization in a corporate WLAN.
• Twine: scalable resource discovery system for pervasive computing environments.
• Infranet: Internet censorship circumvention system.

Students

• Nodira Khoussainova
• YongChul Kwon
• Julie Letchner
• Kristi Morton
• Prasang Upadhyaya
• Evan Welbourne

Publications

Here's the complete list.

Teaching

• CSE444: Introduction to Database Systems (Spring 2009).
  
• CSE544: Principles of Database Systems (Winter 2009).
  
• CSE490R: Broader Impacts of Computer Science and Computer Science Research (Fall 2008).
  
• CSE590Q: Database Reading Seminar (Fall 2008).
  
• CSE590Q: Database Reading Seminar (Spring 2008).
  
• CSE544: Principles of Database Systems (Fall 2007).
  
• CSE590Q: Database Reading Seminar (Spring 2007).
  
• CSE303: Concepts and Tools for Software Development (Winter 2007).
  
• CSE544: Principles of Database Systems (Fall 2006).
  
• CSE590Q: Reading Seminar on Data Manaement Challenges for the World-Wide Sensor Web (Fall 2006).
  
• CSE303: Concepts and Tools for Software Development (Spring 2006).
  
• CSE599C: Hot Topics in Data Management Systems (Winter 2006).
  

If you are looking for our regular database group meetings and talks, they are under CSE 591D

Hosted talks at the Northwest Database Symposium (NWDS)

Professional Activities

• Publicity co-chair for MDM 2009.
• Program committee member for SIGMOD 2009, CIDR 2009, ICDE 2009, and MobiDE 2009.
• Program committee member for ICDE 2008 and MobiDE 2008.
• General co-chair of DMSN'08 (with VLDB 2008)
• Co-chair of RFDM'08 (with ICDE 2008).
• Associate Editor for the Systems and Prototypes Column for SIGMOD Record (June 2007 - Present).
• Committee member for the UW CSE Best Senior Thesis Award (2007).
• Co-chair of the ACM SIGMOD New Researcher Symposium (At SIGMOD 2007).
• Program co-chair of DMSN 2007 (with VLDB 2008).
• Program committee member for VLDB 2007, SIGMOD 2007, and ICDE 2007
• Co-chair of the ACM SIGMOD Life After Graduation Symposium (At SIGMOD 2006).
• MobiDE 2007 publicity chair.
• MobiDE 2006 publicity chair and program committee.
• NetDB 2006 program committee.
• Co-founder of the Northwest Database Society (NWDS)
• Member: ACM, ACM SIGMOD, IEEE.

Outreach Activities

• UW - CSE Direct Admits Seminar. Talk about ``RFID Data Management for Pervasive Computing Applications''. October 2008.
• Microsoft Interns Talk advertising our Professional Master's program - June 2008
• Intel Research Experience for Undergraduates - 2008
• CRA-W Distributed Mentor Project - Summer 2008
• Engineering Open House 2008. Demonstrating the RFID Ecosystem project.
• Direct Admission Visit Day 2008 demo of the RFID Ecosystem.
• Travel Scholarship Reviewer for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2007 and 2008.
• Program committee member for the SIGMOD'07 undergraduate scholarship program.
• Engineering Open House 2007. Demonstrating the RFID Ecosystem project.
• Panelist at the 16th Annual Women in Science and Engineering Conference.
• Address to approximately 200 incoming freshmen potentially interested in engineering

Honors

1. Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellow (2007).
2. Rogel Faculty Support Award (2006).
3. Microsoft Research Graduate Fellowship (2003-2005).
4. USENIX Security Symposium: Best student paper award (2002).
5. NSERC scholarship for graduate studies (2000-2002).
6. FCAR scholarship for graduate studies (2000-2001).
7. NSERC scholarship for graduate studies (1998-99).
8. Fessenden-Trott scholarship (1995-1998).
9. Canada Scholars (scholarship from Canadian government) (1994-1998).
10. Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal scholarship (1994-1997).