Teaching

A (mostly up-to-date) visualization of the Williams College Computer Science department's course prerequisite graph.

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Past Courses

Note: Some of the course materials below are only accessible from within the Williams network.

• (S23) CSCI 256: Algorithm Design and Analysis
• (S21) CSCI 333: Storage Systems
• (F20) CSCI 136: Data Structures & Advanced Programming
• (S20) CSCI 136: Data Structures & Advanced Programming
• (S20) CSCI 333: Storage Systems
• (S19) CSCI 333: Storage Systems
• (F18) CSCI 136: Data Structures & Advanced Programming
• (F18) CSCI 237: Computer Organization
• (S18) CSCI 136: Data Structures & Advanced Programming
• (S18) CSCI 498: Game Analysis & Aesthetics
• (F17) CSCI 136: Data Structures & Advanced Programming
• (F17) CSCI 102: The Socio-Techno Web
• (S17) CSCI 136: Data Structures & Advanced Programming
• (W17) CSCI 11: Developing Your Developer's Toolbox
• (F16) CSCI 135: Diving into the Deluge of Data

Research Interests

I am generally interested in file systems and storage. My research focuses on using modern data structures, in particular write-optimized dictionaries, to improve storage software.

I've completed projects at many layers of the storage software stack, including the application layer (benchmarking tools, key-value stores), the file system layer (BetrFS), and the block/device driver layer (SMR HDD/ZNS SSD host translation). I also have experience working in deduplciation and virtualization.

I am a member of the BetrFS team. BetrFS is a Linux file system built using B^ε-trees, an asymptotically optimal write-optimized dictionary.

As a member of the OSCAR lab at Stony Brook University (now UNC Chapel Hill), I worked for a while on the Graphene library operating system. I later moved to the BetrFS project, and have since focused my work in file systems and storage.

Prior to joining Stony Brook, I explored RNA secondary structure prediction in the Aalberts lab. RNA projects that I have worked on include: RNAbows, a visualization tool for viewing and comparing RNA secondary structures in thermal equilibrium; Bindigo, a tool to optimally BIND olIGOs to longer RNA targets; and Nestor, an RNA secondary structure prediction utility. Nestor is based on stochastically sampling and clustering individual structures with a new and intuitive distance measure. If you are interested in working on these or similar problems, please contact Prof. Aalberts or send me an email!