David Taylor's Home Page



I am a Professor in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo I am also Director of the Computer Communication Networks Group, a joint research group between the School of Computer Science and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Research Areas

My research interests are in two areas: fault tolerance and distributed computing systems. At present, most of my research activity is in the latter area, concentrating on techniques and tools for debugging distributed applications. Our research group has developed a good understanding of techniques for displaying execution histories of distributed (or parallel) applications and for applying abstraction to large histories so that currently irrelevant detail can be suppressed and relevant features more easily seen. Many of our theoretical ideas have been implemented in a prototype tool known as POET (Partial-Order Event Tracer). We are currently exploring the application of our ideas concerning debugging to systems and application management in distributed systems and to finding patterns in partially ordered data, whether trace-type information for debugging or other traces and logs from distributed systems.

Papers: A list of published technical papers and research reports, extracted from my curriculum vitae as of August 1998, is available. (Unfortunately, time pressure while Associate Dean prevented me from bringing the list of papers up to date. Possibly, now that my term is over, the list will be updated before too long.)) The text of a few papers is also available; more will be made available as time permits.

The research described above is taking place in the Shoshin research group. The group receives funding from a variety of sources. The research on debugging of distributed applications is funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and by IBM.

Teaching

In recent years, I have generally been teaching the Operating Systems course (CS 350) and have previously taught the Distributed Systems course Systems course (CS 454), which is the undergraduate course closest to my research area.

Academic History

I obtained an Honours B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Saskatchewan and M.Math. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from the University of Waterloo. Since completing my Ph.D., I have been a faculty member at the University of Waterloo. I took my first three sabbatical leaves at three different locations: the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (1983-84), the IBM Toronto Laboratory (1991-92), and the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center (1999-2000). For my fourth sabbatical combined with four months of administrative leave (2008-2009), I spent more time than usual at the IBM Toronto Laboratory, as I tried to get my research activity back to its usual level.

Because of an inability to say ``no'' at strategic moments, I have served on numerous committees at various levels within the University, including both the University Senate and Board of Governors. I have also, at various times, chaired the Advisory Committee on Appointments and the Curriculum Committee of the Department (now School) of Computer Science and the Mathematics Faculty Committee on Student Appeals. From July 1987 to June 1990 and again from July 1998 to June 1999, I served as Associate Chair, Undergraduate Studies, in the Computer Science Department. From January 2001 to December 2007, I served as Associate Dean (Undergraduate Studies) for the Faculty of Mathematics. As Associate Dean, I chaired several committees, including the Undergraduate Affairs Committee and the Standings and Promotions Committee of the Mathematics Faculty, and served on numerous other committees at the Faculty and University levels.

I have served on various program committees and have been both Program Chair and General Chair for the Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems. For several years, I served on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering. I was Conference Coordinator for the International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks in 2006 in Philadelphia and was persuaded to perform the same role for the 2010 conference in Chicago.

Address

My office address is 

  David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science 
  University of Waterloo 
  200 University Avenue West
  Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1

Office: DC 3510

Phone: +1 (519) 888-4567, ext. 34432
Fax: +1 (519) 885-1208

E-mail: (at top of page)
www: http://www.shoshin.uwaterloo.ca/~dtaylor

Mon May 11 10:56:53 EDT 2009