Professor John W. Byers

Bugaboos Provincial Park, Canadian Rockies, August 2010.

John W. Byers

Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
Boston University
111 Cummington St., Boston, MA, 02215

E-mail: byers @ cs . bu . edu
URL: www.cs.bu.edu/~byers
Office: MCS 270
Office Hours: Mon 9:30 - 11, Thurs 11 - 12:30.
Telephone: (617) 353-8925
FAX: (617) 353-6457
Department: (617) 353-8919
[more details and map]

The boys.

  Bio and Publications: Short bio, CV.   List of publications.

  Research Interests: Algorithmic and economic aspects of computer networking, e-commerce, and large-scale data management.

  Work in Industry:
Chief Scientist, Cogo Labs (formerly known as Adverplex).

  Professional Activities:
General Co-Chair, ACM IMC 2012.
TPC member, USENIX NSDI '12.
TPC member, ACM PODC '12.

  Courses I Teach Regularly:
CS 112 - Intro to Data Structures (Spring '12)
CS 330 - Intro to Algorithms (Fall '11)
CS 455/655 - Computer Networks (Fall '10)
CS 559 - Algorithmic Aspects of Computer Networks (Spring '10)
CS 591 - Electronic Commerce (A new class to be offered Fall '12)
CS 697 - Computer Science Graduate Initiation Course (Spring '10)

  NRG: The Networks Reading Group (NRG) at Boston University meets regularly. All are welcome.

News Updates

12/13/11: Our paper describing the XIA architecture accepted for publication in USENIX NSDI '12.
11/9/11: Our discovery of a major vulnerability in Yelp.com's mobile site featured in BU Today.
Oct-Nov 2011: Our paper on daily deals sites (i.e. Groupon) receives considerable media attention, including coverage in the NY Times, TIME magazine, a segment I did on WBUR (Boston's NPR affiliate), and a spot on Bloomberg TV on the eve of Groupon's IPO.
In 2010, our team from CMU, BU, and U Wisconsin was awarded $7.1M from the NSF under the Future Internet Architectures solicitation. [Press releases from NSF and from CMU], [XIA project homepage].

Research

My main research interests are in designing algorithms, conducting measurements and building systems in networking, electronic commerce, and large-scale data management. I'm part of the WING networking group (4 BU-CS faculty, 20 Ph.D. students) and I collaborate with several members of the Database Lab @ BU.

As Chief Scientist at Cogo Labs, I've been working on a fascinating problem domain since the company's founding in 2005: the algorithmic, data management, and systems-building challenges that arise both as a buyer of pay-per-click advertising and as a publisher.

My theoretical interests range from combinatorial optimization to mathematical modeling to statistical analysis of massive datasets.

I've also collected a few useful pointers to helpful advice for prospective or current graduate students.

Speaking of students, here are the students I'm working with, and alumni that I worked with closely while they were at BU.

Prior awards as PI or co-PI include awards from NSF (NeTS, ITR, CAREER, Special Projects in Networking), from Sprint Labs, and from the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation.