I am a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, cross-appointed to the Department of Computer Science, at the University of Toronto. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Zurich, and did a post-doc at Stanford University before joining UofT as a faculty member. I was a visiting Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) 1994-1995. From 2017 to 2022 I was Bell Canada Chair in Software Engineering.
My research interests lie in the general area of computer systems with a focus on systems software, the layer of software between hardware and applications. I am particularly interested in the complexities and opportunities of distributed and parallel systems.
I enjoy collaborations with other faculty members and with industry. For example, since 2018 I have worked extensively with engineering teams at Meta/Facebook. I have also collaborated with Intel, IBM, Huawei, Untether, and OANDA.
While at UofT, I co-founded two startups. SOMA Networks developed broadband wireless infrastructure for telecoms; we raised substantial amounts of funding, but ultimately failed. OANDA offered an online currency trading service that revolutionized currency trading. I ran the company as president and CEO for twelve years. It was sold to a PE firm in 2018. Due to my involvement with OANDA, I was Chair of NFA's Forex Dealer Advisory Committee 2010-2012 and Advisor to the Monetary Authority of Singapore 2016-2018. I continue to spend considerable time advising and helping startups.
Recent program committees I've been on: OSDI'25, ASPLOS'25, SOSP'24, OSDI'24, ASPLOS'24, EuroSys'23, OSDI'21, NSDI'19, Usenix-ATC'19