Background

Academic: As Professor of Computer Science at BU, my academic research centers on data-analytic and algorithmic challenges in two disciplines: the science of computer networking (e.g., protocol design, network architecture), and the empirical study of Internet platforms (such as Airbnb, Uber and Yelp).

Entrepreneurial: As founding Chief Scientist and Director at the Cogo Labs technology incubator (founded in 2005), I help research and design our own technology platform: we provide proprietary methods for algorithmic marketing, and data analytics that help power our incubated portfolio companies from inception to profitability and beyond. Cogo Labs was honored with a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year award in 2019.

Research and Affiliations

I'm a Computer Science Professor and a founding member of the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences (FCDS) at BU. I'm a member of the Networks Research group and the DBLab at BU.

My academic research is supported in part by grants from the National Science Foundation. Current NSF-funded projects:
• Real-Time Liquid Wireless Networking for Data-Intensive Rural Applications. Collaboration with Iowa State University and BitRipple.

At Cogo Labs, I've been working on a fascinating problem domain since the company's founding: the algorithmic, data management, and systems-building challenges that arise on the buy side of pay-per-click advertising, a canonical data science optimization problem. One example of a successful launch from Cogo Labs using this technology is EverQuote, the Cambridge-based auto insurance marketplace, which had their IPO in Summer 2018 (Nasdaq: EVER).

I also serve on the ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) Steering Committee. Next stop: Montreal! Madrid! (2024)

Teaching

• CS 237 - Probability in Computing, co-taught with Tiago Januario
• CS 591 - Networks and Markets: Theory and Applications (last taught Fall '20)
• CS 591 - The Data Science of Electronic Commerce (last taught Fall '19)
• CS 131 - Combinatoric Structures (last co-taught Fall '18, with Babis Tsourakakis).
• CS 330 - Intro to Algorithms (last co-taught Spring '18, with Dora Erdos).
• CS 112 - Intro to Data Structures (last taught Spring '12)
• CS 455/655 - Computer Networks (last taught Fall '10)
• CS 559 - Algorithmic Aspects of Computer Networks (Spring '10)
• CS 697 - Computer Science Graduate Initiation Course (Spring '10)

Graduate Advising

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