About Me
I am a postdoctoral associate at MIT, hosted by Professor Tim Kraska. I am part of the Data Systems Group within the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and I recently completed my PhD in Computer Science in the same group.
I am generally interested in systems-focused research. My research interests span databases, machine learning for database systems, and systems for machine learning. I also enjoy thinking about problems at the intersection of systems and human-computer interaction as I strongly believe in the value of creating usable systems software.
Before my PhD, I earned my master's degree in Computer Science at the University of Toronto, advised by Professor Gennady Pekhimenko. Before graduate school, I was a Software Engineering student at the University of Waterloo and graduated in 2018.
News
Publications
Blueprinting the Cloud: Unifying and Automatically Optimizing Cloud Data Infrastructures with BRAD
Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (VLDB), Vol. 17, No. 11., 2024.
@article{brad-yu24,
author = {Yu, Geoffrey X. and Wu, Ziniu and Kossmann, Ferdi and Li, Tianyu
and Markakis, Markos and Ngom, Amadou and Madden, Samuel and Kraska, Tim},
doi = {10.14778/3681954.3682026},
journal = {{Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment}},
month = {8},
number = {11},
pages = {3629–-3643},
title = {{Blueprinting the Cloud: Unifying and Automatically Optimizing
Cloud Data Infrastructures with BRAD}},
volume = {17},
year = {2024},
}
Check Out the Big Brain on BRAD: Simplifying Cloud Data Processing with Learned Automated Data Meshes
Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (VLDB), Vol. 16, No. 11., 2023. Vision Paper.
@article{brad-kraska23,
author = {Kraska, Tim and Li, Tianyu and Madden, Samuel and Markakis, Markos
and Ngom, Amadou and Wu, Ziniu and Yu, Geoffrey X.},
doi = {10.14778/3611479.3611526},
journal = {{Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment}},
month = {8},
number = {11},
pages = {3293--3301},
title = {{Check Out the Big Brain on BRAD: Simplifying Cloud Data Processing
with Learned Automated Data Meshes}},
volume = {16},
year = {2023},
}
@article{treeline-yu23,
author = {Yu, Geoffrey X. and Markakis, Markos and Kipf, Andreas and
Larson, Per-Åke and Minhas, Umar Farooq and Kraska, Tim},
doi = {10.14778/3561261.3561270},
journal = {{Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment}},
month = {9},
number = {1},
pages = {99--112},
title = {{TreeLine: An Update-In-Place Key-Value Store for Modern Storage}},
volume = {16},
year = {2022},
}
Habitat: A Runtime-Based Computational Performance Predictor for Deep Neural Network Training
USENIX Annual Technical Conference (USENIX ATC), 2021.
Paper | BibTeX | Talk Video | Project Website
@inproceedings{habitat-yu21,
title = {{Habitat: A Runtime-Based Computational Performance Predictor
for Deep Neural Network Training}},
author = {Yu, Geoffrey X. and Gao, Yubo and Golikov, Pavel and
Pekhimenko, Gennady},
booktitle = {{Proceedings of the 2021 USENIX Annual Technical Conference
(USENIX ATC'21)}},
year = {2021},
}
Skyline: Interactive In-Editor Computational Performance Profiling for Deep Neural Network Training
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), 2020.
@inproceedings{skyline-yu20,
title = {{Skyline: Interactive In-Editor Computational Performance Profiling
for Deep Neural Network Training}},
author = {Yu, Geoffrey X. and Grossman, Tovi and Pekhimenko, Gennady},
booktitle = {{Proceedings of the 33rd ACM Symposium on User Interface
Software and Technology (UIST'20)}},
year = {2020},
}
* Denotes equal contribution.
Preprints
EXPLAIN Yourself! Finding Query Planner Stalls Across DBMSes
arXiv Preprint arXiv:2608.23402. 2026.
@misc{explain-yu26,
title={EXPLAIN Yourself! Finding Query Planner Stalls Across DBMSes},
author={Yu, Geoffrey X. and Marcus, Ryan and Kraska, Tim},
year={2026},
eprint={2608.23402},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={cs.DB},
url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.23402},
}
Tailwind: A Practical Framework for Query Accelerators
arXiv Preprint arXiv:2604.28079. 2026.
@misc{tailwind-yu26,
title={Tailwind: A Practical Framework for Query Accelerators},
author={Yu, Geoffrey X. and Marcus, Ryan and Kraska, Tim},
year={2026},
eprint={2604.28079},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={cs.DB},
url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.28079},
}
JetStream: Generating Query Accelerators for Existing Database Systems
arXiv Preprint arXiv:2608.22476. 2026.
@misc{jetstream-balasingam26,
title={JetStream: Generating Query Accelerators for Existing Database Systems},
author={Balasingam, Akhilesh and Ngom, Amadou and Yu, Geoffrey X. and Kraska, Tim},
year={2026},
eprint={2608.22476},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={cs.DB},
url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.22476},
}
Demonstrations
Virtualizing Cloud Data Infrastructures with BRAD
International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), 2025.
@inproceedings{vdbe-demo-yu25,
author = {Yu, Geoffrey X. and Wu, Ziniu and Kossmann, Ferdi and Li, Tianyu
and Markakis, Markos and Ngom, Amadou and Zhang, Sophie and Kraska, Tim
and Madden, Samuel},
title = {{Virtualizing Cloud Data Infrastructures with BRAD}},
year = {2025},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3722212.3725141},
doi = {10.1145/3722212.3725141},
booktitle = {{Companion of the 2025 International Conference on Management of Data}},
series = {SIGMOD/PODS '25}
}
TBD Suite: Benchmarking and Profiling Tools for DNNs
Machine Learning and Systems (MLSys), 2019. Demonstration Track, Non-archival.
Awards and Honors
-
NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship - Doctoral (NSERC PGS D)
2020 – 2023 -
NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship (NSERC CGS D)
2020 – 2023 (declined) -
NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master's (NSERC CGS M)
2019 – 2020 -
Snap Research Scholarship
January 2019 -
Vector Institute Scholarship in Artificial Intelligence
2018 – 2019 -
Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology (QEII-GSST)
2018 – 2019 -
Wolfond Fellowship
2018 – 2019 -
Sandford Fleming Foundation Award for Academic Excellence
June 2018