My current role: I am currently Senior Scientist in the Gray Systems Lab (GSL; a lab named after Jim Gray, Turing Award winner) within Azure Data. My current research focus lies in the intersection between database systems and machine learning: specifically I am applying lessons from the former to make the latter more scalable and performant.
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Well, first of all in Microsoft you can became a scientist only if you have a PhD! Secondly, the PhD helped me in jumping on the path that then led me here. In fact, my PhD was on Datalog, a logic base variant of SQL. During my studies, I met Carlo Zaniolo, professor at University of California, Los Angeles. In the last 6 months of my PhD, I visited Carlo, and eventually met with Tyson Condie, an assistant professor which recently joined UCLA. Tyson offered me a PostDoc position, and after completed the PhD, I flew to Los Angeles with my wife, were we stayed for about 3 years. Tyson was a former Microsoft researcher, and during the 3 years with me, I eventually met with my current manager, which then hired me at Microsoft. Bottom line, everything started with the PhD (and hard work).)
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