Boon Thau Loo
{{Short description|American computer scientist}}
{{Infobox academic
| name = Boon Thau Loo
| birth_place = Malaysia
| occupation = {{hlist|Professor|college administrator|technology entrepreneur}}
| alma_mater = Stanford University
University of California, Berkeley
| education = PhD
| workplaces = University of Pennsylvania
| discipline = Computer Science
| thesis_title = The Design and Implementation of Declarative Networks
| thesis_url = https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-177.pdf
| thesis_year = 2006
| doctoral_advisor = {{ubl|Joseph M. Hellerstein|Ion Stoica{{cite journal |url=https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1324193|title=Boon Thau Loo speaks out: on his SIGMOD dissertation award, better networking through datalog, life as an assistant professor, and more|author=Marianne Winslett|year=2007|issue=3 |pages=41–45 |journal=ACM SIGMOD Record|volume=36 |doi=10.1145/1324185.1324193 |s2cid=44499901 }}}}
| website = {{URL||https://boonloo.cis.upenn.edu/}}
| known_for = Declarative networking
MCIT Online
Co-founding companies Netsil and Termaxia
}}
Boon Thau Loo is a Singaporean-American computer scientist, college administrator, and technology entrepreneur. He is currently the RCA professor in the Computer and Information Science department at the University of Pennsylvania where he leads a research lab working on distributed systems, and serves as the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Early life
Boon Thau Loo was born in Malaysia and grew up in Singapore. He studied at The Chinese High School and Raffles Junior College. In 1996, he moved to the United States in order to attend the University of California, Berkeley,{{cite web|url=https://technical.ly/philly/2013/11/06/comp-sci-penn-startup-gencore-systems/|title=Meet one of the first faculty startups from Penn's Comp. Sci. department|first=Juliana|last=Reyes|date=6 November 2013|website=Technical.ly Philly}} where he received an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Following his studies there, he pursued his master's degree in computer science{{cite web|url=https://technical.ly/philly/2018/08/31/how-i-crossed-the-academic-chasm-and-entered-the-startup-life/|title=How I crossed the academic chasm and entered the startup life|first=Boon Thau|last=Loo|date=31 August 2018|website=Technical.ly Philly}} at Stanford University. He then returned to Berkeley for his PhD, which he graduated in 2006 with the David J. Sakrison Memorial Prize dissertation award and the 2007 ACM SIGMOD Dissertation Award for his thesis The Design and Implementation of Declarative Networks. Loo then began working as a post-doctoral researcher at Microsoft Research.
Academic career
Loo is the RCA professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Pennsylvania in the departments of Computer and Information Science and Electrical and Systems Engineering. He is also the director of the Distributed Systems Laboratory and the NetDB@Penn research group.{{cite web |url=https://netdb.cis.upenn.edu/papers/dp_database.pdf|title=Database Group stays on cutting edge of technology |publisher=The Daily Pennsylvanian}} In 2018, he became the associate dean of master's and professional programs,{{cite web|url=https://technical.ly/philly/2018/07/25/penn-engineering-online-masters-programming/|title=Penn Engineering launches its first online-only master's program on Coursera|first=Roberto|last=Torres|date=25 July 2018|website=Technical.ly Philly}} where he oversees the Master's and professional programs in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.{{cite web|url=https://www.inquirer.com/philly/business/technology/university-pennsylvania-online-masters-program-computer-science-coursera-engineering-20180725.html|title=University of Pennsylvania to offer fully-online master's program in computer science|first=Courtney|last=Becker|publisher=Philadelphia Inquirer}} He has published over 150 papers{{cite web|url=https://dblp.org/pers/hd/l/Loo:Boon_Thau|title=dblp: Boon Thau Loo|publisher=DBLP - Computer Science Bibliography}} and two books - Declarative Networking (Synthesis Lectures on Data Management) in 2012{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=reFcAQAAQBAJ|title=Declarative Networking|first1=Boon Thau|last1=Loo|first2=Wenchao|last2=Zhou|date=1 January 2012|publisher=Morgan & Claypool Publishers|via=Google Books|isbn=9781608456024}} and Datalog and Recursive Query Processing (Foundations and Trends(r) in Databases) in 2013.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wSIVngEACAAJ|title=Datalog and Recursive Query Processing|first1=Todd J.|last1=Green|first2=Shan Shan|last2=Huang|first3=Boon Thau|last3=Loo|first4=Wenchao|last4=Zhou|date=26 June 2019|publisher=Now Publishers|via=Google Books|isbn=9781601987525}} In 2019, Loo received the University of Pennsylvania Emerging Inventor of the Year award, given annually to one Penn faculty member for success in technology transfer.{{Cite web |title=Penn awards endowed professorships to four engineering faculty members |url=https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/09/penn-award-professor-science-engineering}} In July 2020, Loo was appointed Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, where he oversees the doctoral, master's and professional programs at Penn Engineering.{{Cite web|url=https://online.seas.upenn.edu/general-information/introducing-scholarships/|title=Expanding Our Reach: Introducing Scholarships|website=online.seas.upenn.edu}}
Business career
While on sabbatical leave from Penn in 2014, Loo cofounded and led Gencore Systems, a Penn startup company on cloud performance monitoring.{{cite web |url=https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2015/03/26/penn-faculty-startup-raises-100k-from-startup-phl.html|title=Penn faculty startup raises $100K from Startup PHL angel fund |publisher=Philadelphia Business Journal |date=March 26, 2015}} Gencore Systems was one of the first faculty-led startups from Penn's Computer Science department. Leading a group of his former students that spun off the company with him, Loo formed a partnership with the OpenLab of Juniper Networks and integrated his group's research on high-performance declarative network analytics into Juniper's newly acquired Contrail SDN platform.{{cite web|url=https://njtechweekly.com/junipers-openlab-in-bridgewater-having-worldwide-impact/|title=Juniper's OpenLab in Bridgewater Having Worldwide Impact|first=Esther|last=Surden|date=22 July 2015 |publisher=}} The company raised seed funding in addition to a SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) grant from the National Science Foundation. The company was later renamed Netsil and acquired by Nutanix in 2018 for up to 74 million US dollars in stock.{{Cite web|url=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4156302-nutanix-to-acquire-netsil-for-up-to-74-million-in-stock|title=Nutanix To Acquire Netsil For Up To $74 Million In Stock (NASDAQ:NTNX) | Seeking Alpha|website=seekingalpha.com}} In 2015, Loo also cofounded Termaxia, a big data storage company, where he served as Chief Scientist.{{cite web|url=https://technical.ly/philly/2016/07/21/termaxia-startup-phl-funding/|title=This stealth-mode company nabbed $100K from StartUp PHL|first=Roberto|last=Torres|date=21 July 2016|website=Technical.ly Philly}} In 2020, the company was acquired by Frontiir.{{Cite web|url=https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/myanmar-s-frontiir-acquires-termaxia-cloud-storage-high-tech-firm-in-us-1028972877|title=Myanmar's Frontiir acquires Termaxia, Cloud Storage High-tech Firm in US|website=markets.businessinsider.com}}
Recognition
- Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, awarded by the University of Pennsylvania, 2022{{Cite web|url=https://almanac.upenn.edu/articles/2022-provosts-teaching-awards|title=2022 Provost's Teaching Awards|website=almanac.upenn.edu}}
- Best paper award at the 23rd International Conference on Extending Database Technology, 30 March-2 April 2020{{Cite web|url=https://diku-dk.github.io/edbticdt2020/?contents=awards_bp_edbt.html|title=EDBT 2020 Best Paper Award}}
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program award, 2012{{Cite web|url=https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/887733|title=AFOSR awards grants to 48 scientists and engineers through its Young Investigator Research Program|website=EurekAlert!}}
- ACM SIGMOD Dissertation Award, 2007{{Cite web|url=https://sigmod.org/sigmod-awards/sigmod-jim-gray-doctoral-dissertation-award/|title=SIGMOD Jim Gray Doctoral Dissertation Award – SIGMOD Website}}
- David J. Sakrison Memorial Prize, 2006{{Cite web|url=https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Students/Awards/17/|title=Student Award: David J. Sakrison Memorial Prize | EECS at UC Berkeley|website=www2.eecs.berkeley.edu}}
- Computing Research Association Outstanding Undergraduate Awards (Honorable mention), 1999{{Cite web|url=https://archive.cra.org/Activities/awards/undergrad/winners.99.html|title=1999 Winners: Outstanding Undergraduate Awards|website=archive.cra.org}}
References
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Category:University of Pennsylvania faculty
Category:Stanford University alumni
Category:UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni
Category:Singaporean computer scientists
Category:Malaysian company founders
Category:Malaysian non-fiction writers
Category:Computer science writers
Category:Technology company founders
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science faculty