’m currently a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Corporation, where I've worked since 1994. I'm also an Affiliate Professor of computer science at University of Washington. Over the past 35 years, I’ve been a product architect at Microsoft and at Digital Equipment Corp. (gone but not forgotten), a professor at Harvard University and Wang Institute of Graduate Studies, and a VP Software at Sequoia Systems. In all of these jobs, I’ve focused on research and development of database management and transaction processing software. Lately, I’ve been working on new transaction processing technology for cloud computing. In particular, I was one of the designers of the Microsoft’s SQL Azure service.

Over the years, I’ve published over 150 papers and two books on the theory and implementation of database systems, especially on transaction processing. The second edition of my latest book Transaction Processing, with Eric Newcomer, was published in June 2009. This is a major rewrite of the first edition, to reflect the many changes in transaction processing middleware technology since the first edition was published in 1996 and to add depth to the database topics, notably locking, logging, and replication.

In addition to my work on transaction processing, I’ve spent many years developing new mechanisms for the management of database schemas and mappings between them. This includes software repositories, schema mapping generation, schema evolution, lineage tracing, data translation, and data integration, all primarily for commercial applications. I was one of the contributors to Microsoft’s ADO.NET Entity Framework, an object-to-relational mapping system, and to the automated mapping functionality in Microsoft’s BizTalk Mapper.

I spend some of my time on professional service activities. Currently, I’m an Editor-in-Chief of the Very Large Databases Journal, a member of the National Academy Board on Mathematical Sciences and Applications, and Treasurer of the Computing Research Association. I’m an ACM Fellow, a winner of the SIGMOD Innovations Award, and a member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.