Biography:Boon Thau Loo

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Boon Thau Loo
Born
Malaysia
Occupation
  • Professor
  • college administrator
  • technology entrepreneur
Known forDeclarative networking, MCIT Online, co-founding Netsil acquired by Nutanix and Termaxia acquired by Frontiir
Academic background
EducationPhD
Alma materStanford University
University of California, Berkeley
ThesisThe Design and Implementation of Declarative Networks (2006)
Doctoral advisor
Academic work
DisciplineComputer Science
InstitutionsUniversity of Pennsylvania
Websitehttps://boonloo.cis.upenn.edu/

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.[2] 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,[3] 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[4] at Stanford University.[2] He then returned to Berkeley for his PhD,[4] 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.[1] Following his studies, Loo began working as a post-doctoral researcher at Microsoft Research.[4][2]

Academic career

As a scholar, Loo became the RCA professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Pennsylvania[4] in the departments of Computer and Information Science and Electrical and Systems Engineering. At Penn he is also the director of the Distributed Systems Laboratory and the NetDB@Penn research group.[5] In 2018, he became the associate dean of master's and professional programs,[6] where he oversees all Master's and professional programs in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.[7] As associate dean, Loo led several new academic initiatives, such as MCIT Online,[8] first Ivy League fully online master's degree program in computer science for non-computer science majors, the J.P. Eckert Diversity Fellowship,[9] Cybersecurity boot camp for mid-career professionals in the Philadelphia greater area,[10] data science boot camp,[11] the accelerated master's program for Penn undergraduates.[12], professional development course for all master's students in engineering,[13] and MSE-DS Online (online Data Science master's).[14]

While serving as a researcher and professor, Loo has founded several private enterprises.[15] He has published over 150 papers[16] and two books - Declarative Networking (Synthesis Lectures on Data Management) in 2012[17] and Datalog and Recursive Query Processing (Foundations and Trends(r) in Databases) in 2013.[18]

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..[19]

In July 2020, Loo was appointed Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, where he oversees all doctoral, master's and professional programs at Penn Engineering. As graduate dean, he launched several new initiatives, including the Dean's Doctoral Diversity Fellowship, Dean's Master's Fellowships for on-campus and online master's students, and the Master-to-Ph.D. bridge program.[20]

In 2021, Loo received the 2021 Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Excellence in Teaching, sponsored by Lutron Electronics[21]

Business career

While on sabbatical leave from Penn in 2014, Loo cofounded and led Gencore Systems,[3] a Penn startup company on cloud performance monitoring.[2] Gencore Systems was one of the first faculty-led startups from Penn's Computer Science department.[3] 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.[22] 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 US$74M in stock.[23] At the point of acquisition, Netsil was one of the first successful faculty-led startup exits from the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering and Applied Science.

In 2015, Loo also cofounded Termaxia, a big data storage company, where he served as Chief Scientist.[24] In 2020, the company was acquired by Frontiir, a leading Internet company in Southeast Asia.[25] Post acquisition, Loo currently serves as the executive adviser at Frontiir, where he advises the CEO and CTO on technology strategy, and help establish Frontiir's R&D center in Philadelphia.

Recognition

  • Lindback award for Distinguished Teaching, awarded by the University of Pennsylvania, 2022[26]
  • Best paper award at the 23rd International Conference on Extending Database Technology, 30th March-2nd April, 2020[27]
  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program award, 2012[28]
  • ACM SIGMOD Dissertation Award, 2007[29]
  • David J. Sakrison Memorial Prize, 2006[30]
  • Computing Research Association Outstanding Undergraduate Awards (Honorable mention), 1999[31]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Marianne Winslett (2007). "Boon Thau Loo speaks out: on his SIGMOD dissertation award, better networking through datalog, life as an assistant professor, and more". ACM SIGMOD Record 36 (3): 41–45. doi:10.1145/1324185.1324193. https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1324193. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Penn faculty startup raises $100K from Startup PHL angel fund". Philadelphia Business Journal. March 26, 2015. https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2015/03/26/penn-faculty-startup-raises-100k-from-startup-phl.html. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Reyes, Juliana (6 November 2013). "Meet one of the first faculty startups from Penn's Comp. Sci. department". https://technical.ly/philly/2013/11/06/comp-sci-penn-startup-gencore-systems/. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Loo, Boon Thau (31 August 2018). "How I crossed the academic chasm and entered the startup life". https://technical.ly/philly/2018/08/31/how-i-crossed-the-academic-chasm-and-entered-the-startup-life/. 
  5. ↑ "Database Group stays on cutting edge of technology". The Daily Pennsylvanian. https://netdb.cis.upenn.edu/papers/dp_database.pdf. 
  6. ↑ Torres, Roberto (25 July 2018). "Penn Engineering launches its first online-only master's program on Coursera". https://technical.ly/philly/2018/07/25/penn-engineering-online-masters-programming/. 
  7. ↑ Becker, Courtney. "University of Pennsylvania to offer fully-online master's program in computer science". Philadelphia Inquirer. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/business/technology/university-pennsylvania-online-masters-program-computer-science-coursera-engineering-20180725.html. 
  8. ↑ "Online Master's in Computer and Information Technology". https://online.seas.upenn.edu/degrees/mcit-online/. 
  9. ↑ "2018 J.P. Eckert Master's Fellows". https://almanac.upenn.edu/articles/2018-j.p.-eckert-masters-fellows. 
  10. ↑ "Penn is launching a 24-week cybersecurity bootcamp". 14 August 2019. https://technical.ly/philly/2019/08/14/university-of-pennsylvania-launching-a-24-week-cybersecurity-bootcamp/. 
  11. ↑ "Penn Data Analysis & Visualization Boot Camp | Philadelphia". https://bootcamp.sas.upenn.edu/data/. 
  12. ↑ "Penn Engineering sub-matriculants must now complete undergraduate degree in 4 years". https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/02/cis-penn-engineering-accelerated-master-program-computer-science. ,
  13. ↑ "Coursicle – Plan your perfect schedule". https://www.coursicle.com/penn/courses/EAS/896/. 
  14. ↑ "Online Master's in Computer and Information Technology". https://online.seas.upenn.edu/degrees/mse-ds-online/. 
  15. ↑ Torres, Roberto (8 February 2018). "One of StartUp PHL's original investments is finally out of stealth mode". https://technical.ly/philly/2018/02/08/termaxia-stealth-mode-data-storage-startup-phl/. 
  16. ↑ "dblp: Boon Thau Loo". DBLP - Computer Science Bibliography. https://dblp.org/pers/hd/l/Loo:Boon_Thau. 
  17. ↑ Loo, Boon Thau; Zhou, Wenchao (1 January 2012). Declarative Networking. Morgan & Claypool Publishers. ISBN 9781608456024. https://books.google.com/books?id=reFcAQAAQBAJ. 
  18. ↑ Green, Todd J.; Huang, Shan Shan; Loo, Boon Thau; Zhou, Wenchao (26 June 2019). Datalog and Recursive Query Processing. Now Publishers. ISBN 9781601987525. https://books.google.com/books?id=wSIVngEACAAJ. 
  19. ↑ "Penn awards endowed professorships to four engineering faculty members". https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/09/penn-award-professor-science-engineering. 
  20. ↑ "Expanding Our Reach: Introducing Scholarships". https://online.seas.upenn.edu/general-information/introducing-scholarships/. 
  21. ↑ "The 2021 Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Excellence in Teaching: Professors Susan Davidson and Boon Thau Loo". https://blog.cis.upenn.edu/the-2021-ruth-and-joel-spira-award-for-excellence-in-teaching-professors-susan-davidson-and-boon-thau-loo/. 
  22. ↑ Surden, Esther (22 July 2015). "Juniper's OpenLab in Bridgewater Having Worldwide Impact". https://njtechweekly.com/junipers-openlab-in-bridgewater-having-worldwide-impact/. 
  23. ↑ "Nutanix To Acquire Netsil For Up To $74 Million In Stock (NASDAQ:NTNX) | Seeking Alpha". https://seekingalpha.com/article/4156302-nutanix-to-acquire-netsil-for-up-to-74-million-in-stock. 
  24. ↑ Torres, Roberto (21 July 2016). "This stealth-mode company nabbed $100K from StartUp PHL". https://technical.ly/philly/2016/07/21/termaxia-startup-phl-funding/. 
  25. ↑ "Myanmar's Frontiir acquires Termaxia, Cloud Storage High-tech Firm in US". https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/myanmar-s-frontiir-acquires-termaxia-cloud-storage-high-tech-firm-in-us-1028972877. 
  26. ↑ "2022 Provost's Teaching Awards". https://almanac.upenn.edu/articles/2022-provosts-teaching-awards. 
  27. ↑ "EDBT 2020 Best Paper Award". https://diku-dk.github.io/edbticdt2020/?contents=awards_bp_edbt.html. 
  28. ↑ "AFOSR awards grants to 48 scientists and engineers through its Young Investigator Research Program". https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/887733. 
  29. ↑ "SIGMOD Jim Gray Doctoral Dissertation Award – SIGMOD Website". https://sigmod.org/sigmod-awards/sigmod-jim-gray-doctoral-dissertation-award/. 
  30. ↑ "Student Award: David J. Sakrison Memorial Prize | EECS at UC Berkeley". https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Students/Awards/17/. 
  31. ↑ "1999 Winners: Outstanding Undergraduate Awards". https://archive.cra.org/Activities/awards/undergrad/winners.99.html. 




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