Ross Shaull

Computer science Ph.D. student working in the design and implementation of high-performance systems. Recent research has focused on storage system snapshots, leveraging the technique of Split Snapshots to retain frequent, long-lived snapshots in database systems at very low cost.

Ross Shaull

Email:

rshaull@cs.brandeis.edu

Postal:

MS 018 Brandeis University, P.O. Box 549110 Waltham, MA 02454-9110, USA

Education

• Currently pursuing a Ph.D. (6th year) in the Department of Computer Science at Brandeis University
  • Advised by Liuba Shrira
  • Dissertation title: Retro: A Methodology for Retrospection Everywhere
• MA, Computer Science, Brandeis University, May 2007
  • Cumulative GPA: 4.0
• BA, Guilford College, NC, May 2003
  • Cumulative GPA: 3.53
  • Majors in Physics, Philosophy, and Computing and Information Technology
  • Honors senior project: Evolving an Edge Detecting Cellular Automata Using a Genetic Algorithm

Awards and Scholarships

• Outstanding Teaching Fellow Award, Brandeis University, April 2012
• Outstanding Teaching Fellow Award, Brandeis University, April 2009
• Outstanding Teaching Fellow Award, Brandeis University, April 2007
• Graduate Teaching Fellowship, Brandeis University, 2006–2012
• Honors Scholarship, Guilford College, 1999–2003

Publications

• Ross Shaull, Liuba Shrira, and Hao Xu. Skippy: a New Snapshot Indexing Method for Time Travel in the Storage Manager. SIGMOD 2008 Vancouver, BC, Canada.
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• Ross Shaull, Liuba Shrira, and Hao Xu. Skippy: Enabling Long-Lived Snapshots of the Long-Lived Past. ICDE 2008 Cancun, Mexico.
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• Liuba Shrira, Ross Shaull, Catharine van Ingen. Time travel in the virtualized past: cheap fares and first class seats. SYSTOR 2007 Haifa, Israel.
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Presentations and Posters

• Ross Shaull and Liuba Shrira Retro: Modular and efficient retrospection in a database NEDBDay 2012 MIT, Boston, MA (presentation)
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• Charu Jain, Ross Shaull, and Liuba Shrira Retrospection for the Web Programmer NEDBDay 2011 MIT, Boston, MA (poster)
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• Ross Shaull and Liuba Shrira. The Retrospection Abstraction in Storage Systems. NEDBDay 2009 MIT, Boston, MA (poster)
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• Ross Shaull, Liuba Shrira, and Hao Xu. Skippy: Enabling Long-Lived Snapshots of the Long-Lived Past (version 2). ICDE 2008 Cancun, Mexico. (poster)
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• Ross Shaull and Liuba Shrira. Split Snapshots and Skippy Indexing: Long Live the Past! Graduate Seminar, March 2008 Brandeis University. (presentation)
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• Ross Shaull, Liuba Shrira, Hao Xu. Skippy: Enabling Long-Lived Snapshots of the Long-Lived Past (version 1). NEDBDay 2008 MIT, Boston, MA. (poster)
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• Ross Shaull and Liuba Shrira. WiP: High-Performance Snapshots in a High-Level Cache. SOSP 2007 Stevenson, WA. (presentation, Works in Progress section)
• Ross Shaull and Liuba Shrira. Skippy: High-Performance Meta-data for Trustworthy Split Snapshots. PASS Workshop January 2007 Harvard University, Boston, MA. (presentation)

Teaching Experience

• cs11a: Introduction to Programming (Summer 2010)
  • Taught fundamental aspects of computer programming such as abstract reasoning and dividing a problem into subproblems, while building practical Java skills.
  • Students quickly gained competency through frequent hands-on labs in class as well as challenging programming assignments.
  • Overall instructor rating 4.58 out of 5 with a 100% response rate.

TA Experience

• Courses:
  • cs220: The Art of Multicore Programming (Fall 2008)
  • cs146a: Principles of Computer System Design (Fall 2011, Fall 2009, Fall 2007)
    • I designed a number of projects for this course. One of the most successful was an adaptation of the classic web proxy server project, asking students to make use of some existing components to help them write a better system, and benchmark their systems.
  • cs147a: Networks and Distributed Computing (Spring 2012, Spring 2008)
    • We used Hadoop for projects in this course. To help students get started with Hadoop I wrote them a Hadoop checklist.
  • cs31a: Computer System Structures and Organization (Spring 2010, Spring 2009, Spring 2007)
  • cs11a: Introduction to Programming (Fall 2006)
• Selected guest lecture slides:
  • Fall 2009, cs146a (Prof. Shrira); Performance engineering for the Internet in the End-to-End Layer (slides)
  • Summer 2008, cs2a (Prof. Hickey); whirlwind tour of the Internet and HTTP (slides)
  • Spring 2008, cs33b (Prof. DiLillo); history and structure of the Internet (slides day 1, slides day 2)

Professional Societies/Activities

• ACM, student member
• Student volunteer, SIGMOD 2009

Industry Experience

• Intern, Network Appliance, Summer 2007
• Intern, United Guaranty, Summer 2005
• Web applications developer, 2003–2005
• Help desk supervisor, Guilford College, 1999–2003

Ross Shaull — Brandeis University

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