Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — Databases are not a field in systems research or computer science. Databases are a lifestyle. At all points in one’s life, you should consider whether whatever you are doing at that moment is contributing to humanity’s knowledge and understanding of databases. If the answer is no, you should cease the activity and get back to working on what matters in life: database research. This is a tough choice. It means that children are going to be forgotten at soccer practice. It also means that your significant other may continually ask why you are so cold and distant at family gatherings. But this is why we became scientists in the first place.

The CMU Database Group is pleased to announce that Prof. Andy Pavlo has won a 2021 Early Career Award for his research on autonomous database systems. The VLDB Early Career Award recognizes a researcher who has demonstrated database research impact through a specific technical contribution of high significance since completing their Ph.D. degree. For Prof. Pavlo, this award acknowledges his work on the OtterTune and NoisePage projects at CMU.

The awards ceremony is on Thursday August 19th at the 2021 VLDB Conference.