Natacha Crooks
@nacrooks.bsky.social
CS prof at UC Berkeley. Distributed Systems and Databases. Baking, handball and football enthusiast. Avid cheese eater.
PSA: Following a sample of my latest teaching review: "Prof Crooks's accent is somewhat distracting. I think it's something to do with the rise in pitch at the end of a sentence". I will now be adopting a Texas drawl in honour of my UT PhD. Please bear with me as I perfect it over the next year.
June 4, 2025 at 4:13 PM
PSA: Following a sample of my latest teaching review: "Prof Crooks's accent is somewhat distracting. I think it's something to do with the rise in pitch at the end of a sentence". I will now be adopting a Texas drawl in honour of my UT PhD. Please bear with me as I perfect it over the next year.
Reposted by Natacha Crooks
The US Administration has indefinitely blocked *all* student visa applicants from getting a visa interview.
Worldwide, unconditional, no end date. All.
International students are crucial to the US university system, American innovation, and future US prosperity.
Worldwide, unconditional, no end date. All.
International students are crucial to the US university system, American innovation, and future US prosperity.
Rubio Reportedly Pauses New International Student Visa Interviews
More than 1.1 million international students were enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities in the 2023-2024 school year.
www.forbes.com
May 27, 2025 at 7:21 PM
The US Administration has indefinitely blocked *all* student visa applicants from getting a visa interview.
Worldwide, unconditional, no end date. All.
International students are crucial to the US university system, American innovation, and future US prosperity.
Worldwide, unconditional, no end date. All.
International students are crucial to the US university system, American innovation, and future US prosperity.
Reposted by Natacha Crooks
They’re basically just trying to kill off US higher education as an industry at this point. Even a delay will pose a critical decision for thousands of prospective students whose futures are now in the air.
May 27, 2025 at 11:12 PM
They’re basically just trying to kill off US higher education as an industry at this point. Even a delay will pose a critical decision for thousands of prospective students whose futures are now in the air.
Reposted by Natacha Crooks
It’s that time of the year again, when the air smells fresh, the flowers are blooming and systems researchers are in a windowless room because it’s the SOSP deadline! I wrote these hints on writing an SOSP paper some time ago but it’s still a great reference. irenezhang.net/blog/2021/06...
Irene Y. Zhang: Hints on how to write an SOSP paper
irenezhang.net
March 24, 2025 at 9:41 PM
It’s that time of the year again, when the air smells fresh, the flowers are blooming and systems researchers are in a windowless room because it’s the SOSP deadline! I wrote these hints on writing an SOSP paper some time ago but it’s still a great reference. irenezhang.net/blog/2021/06...
Very grateful to be part of the 2025 Sloan Research Fellow cohort.
Thank you my fantastic students and amazing colleagues who have made this possible!
Many of them will be graduating soon. Hire them!
Thank you my fantastic students and amazing colleagues who have made this possible!
Many of them will be graduating soon. Hire them!
🎉Congrats to the 126 early-career scientists who have been awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship this year! These exceptional scholars are drawn from 51 institutions across the US and Canada, and represent the next generation of groundbreaking researchers. sloan.org/fellowships/...
February 18, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Very grateful to be part of the 2025 Sloan Research Fellow cohort.
Thank you my fantastic students and amazing colleagues who have made this possible!
Many of them will be graduating soon. Hire them!
Thank you my fantastic students and amazing colleagues who have made this possible!
Many of them will be graduating soon. Hire them!
Reposted by Natacha Crooks
📢📢VLDB26 (@vldb.bsky.social) will have a ShadowPC! Apply at forms.office.com/e/XYihKj4UKq by March 1! Great opportunity for folk who are new to the data management community & want to gain paper reviewing experience. More info at application form. Chairs: @zistvan.bsky.social, Tianzheng Wang, & I.
Microsoft Forms
forms.office.com
February 10, 2025 at 5:26 PM
📢📢VLDB26 (@vldb.bsky.social) will have a ShadowPC! Apply at forms.office.com/e/XYihKj4UKq by March 1! Great opportunity for folk who are new to the data management community & want to gain paper reviewing experience. More info at application form. Chairs: @zistvan.bsky.social, Tianzheng Wang, & I.
Anyone currently applying for a green card seeing their estimated processing time creep up significantly?
February 10, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Anyone currently applying for a green card seeing their estimated processing time creep up significantly?
Reposted by Natacha Crooks
I wanted to go through the rest of the disaggregated OLTP papers in detail, as I'd missed a few, so I'm re-reading everything and incrementally filling in more papers on transactional.blog/notes-on/dis...
Recent additions are overviews for Aurora Serverless and PolarFS.
Recent additions are overviews for Aurora Serverless and PolarFS.
Notes On: Disaggregated OLTP Systems
Aurora, Socrates, PolarDB, and Taurus.
transactional.blog
February 8, 2025 at 9:03 PM
I wanted to go through the rest of the disaggregated OLTP papers in detail, as I'd missed a few, so I'm re-reading everything and incrementally filling in more papers on transactional.blog/notes-on/dis...
Recent additions are overviews for Aurora Serverless and PolarFS.
Recent additions are overviews for Aurora Serverless and PolarFS.
Reposted by Natacha Crooks
Continuing from yesterday's blog post, today I look at an interesting isolation edge-case from the literature: Fekete's Anomaly. How does it fit in to our theme of achieving performance, scalability, and reliability through reducing coordination? New blog post here: brooker.co.za/blog/2025/02...
February 6, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Continuing from yesterday's blog post, today I look at an interesting isolation edge-case from the literature: Fekete's Anomaly. How does it fit in to our theme of achieving performance, scalability, and reliability through reducing coordination? New blog post here: brooker.co.za/blog/2025/02...
Well this is going to make work interesting ...
January 28, 2025 at 3:15 AM
Well this is going to make work interesting ...
Reposted by Natacha Crooks
I’m an NSF panel reviewer that was scheduled to meet today. Just got notice that all NSF panels were canceled today. I reviewed some innovative proposals in support of students. Devastating if these scholars don’t get to do this work. For the love of science & students I hope this is just a delay.💔
January 27, 2025 at 2:45 PM
I’m an NSF panel reviewer that was scheduled to meet today. Just got notice that all NSF panels were canceled today. I reviewed some innovative proposals in support of students. Devastating if these scholars don’t get to do this work. For the love of science & students I hope this is just a delay.💔
Reposted by Natacha Crooks
Spring 2025 @cmudb.bsky.social Course: OPTIMIZE! A Journey Through Database Query Optimization
This is a survey course on how to build a SQL optimizer from scratch covering foundational and state-of-the-art implementations. All lectures available on YouTube: 15799.courses.cs.cmu.edu/spring2025/
This is a survey course on how to build a SQL optimizer from scratch covering foundational and state-of-the-art implementations. All lectures available on YouTube: 15799.courses.cs.cmu.edu/spring2025/
CMU 15-799 :: Special Topics in Databases: Query Optimization (Spring 2025)
This course is a hands-on exploration of the most challenging problem in computer science: database query optimization. It will cover the classical and state-of-the-art methods and algorithms for conv...
15799.courses.cs.cmu.edu
January 16, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Spring 2025 @cmudb.bsky.social Course: OPTIMIZE! A Journey Through Database Query Optimization
This is a survey course on how to build a SQL optimizer from scratch covering foundational and state-of-the-art implementations. All lectures available on YouTube: 15799.courses.cs.cmu.edu/spring2025/
This is a survey course on how to build a SQL optimizer from scratch covering foundational and state-of-the-art implementations. All lectures available on YouTube: 15799.courses.cs.cmu.edu/spring2025/
A poodle, a latte, California sun and @andypavlo.bsky.social's new query optimizer lecture course. Not a bad start to a Saturday morning walk.
January 18, 2025 at 7:39 PM
A poodle, a latte, California sun and @andypavlo.bsky.social's new query optimizer lecture course. Not a bad start to a Saturday morning walk.
Female colleagues in CS: how often a year do you get mistaken for one of your male colleagues' secretary?
I'm already at one this year and it's not even Feb!
PS: you don't want me coordinating your calendar. I will accidentally double book you and schedule 7 am meetings.
I'm already at one this year and it's not even Feb!
PS: you don't want me coordinating your calendar. I will accidentally double book you and schedule 7 am meetings.
January 13, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Female colleagues in CS: how often a year do you get mistaken for one of your male colleagues' secretary?
I'm already at one this year and it's not even Feb!
PS: you don't want me coordinating your calendar. I will accidentally double book you and schedule 7 am meetings.
I'm already at one this year and it's not even Feb!
PS: you don't want me coordinating your calendar. I will accidentally double book you and schedule 7 am meetings.
Dear Students, as University X require me to rate your artistitic ability, and University Y require me to rate your competency in a foreign language. I henceforth require all meetings to be conducted in French while dancing a cèilidh as a precondition to me writing a reference.
Thank you.
Thank you.
December 20, 2024 at 10:44 AM
Dear Students, as University X require me to rate your artistitic ability, and University Y require me to rate your competency in a foreign language. I henceforth require all meetings to be conducted in French while dancing a cèilidh as a precondition to me writing a reference.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Reposted by Natacha Crooks
New blog post, diving a little deeper on Snapshot Isolation and Serializability, through the lens of the coordination required to implement them: brooker.co.za/blog/2024/12...
Snapshot Isolation vs Serializability - Marc's Blog
brooker.co.za
December 18, 2024 at 5:22 PM
New blog post, diving a little deeper on Snapshot Isolation and Serializability, through the lens of the coordination required to implement them: brooker.co.za/blog/2024/12...
There is a special place in hell for schools that require you to rate applicants across 10 axes for recommendation letters and don't just let you upload the standard PDF.
December 15, 2024 at 7:12 PM
There is a special place in hell for schools that require you to rate applicants across 10 axes for recommendation letters and don't just let you upload the standard PDF.
Reposted by Natacha Crooks
The PaPoC workshop is once again accepting submissions on distributed consistency. Deadline 15 January papoc-workshop.github.io/2025/cfp.html
Call for Papers
The 12th Workshop on Principles and Practice of Consistency for Distributed Data
papoc-workshop.github.io
December 6, 2024 at 10:37 AM
The PaPoC workshop is once again accepting submissions on distributed consistency. Deadline 15 January papoc-workshop.github.io/2025/cfp.html
Reposted by Natacha Crooks
I was recently on a panel on "What are important data systems problems, ignored by research?" with @andypavlo.bsky.social and Allison Lee moderated by Viktor Leis - here is the write-up of the discussion databasearchitects.blogspot.com/2024/12/what...
What are important data systems problems, ignored by research?
A blog by and for database architects.
databasearchitects.blogspot.com
December 13, 2024 at 7:58 AM
I was recently on a panel on "What are important data systems problems, ignored by research?" with @andypavlo.bsky.social and Allison Lee moderated by Viktor Leis - here is the write-up of the discussion databasearchitects.blogspot.com/2024/12/what...
Reposted by Natacha Crooks
🛬🛂if you are planning to come to SIGMOD in Berlin, make sure to meet your corresponding visa and travel requirements in a timely manner. We have now curated the relevant links to official websites.
2025.sigmod.org/visa.shtml
2025.sigmod.org/visa.shtml
2025.sigmod.org
December 13, 2024 at 8:25 AM
🛬🛂if you are planning to come to SIGMOD in Berlin, make sure to meet your corresponding visa and travel requirements in a timely manner. We have now curated the relevant links to official websites.
2025.sigmod.org/visa.shtml
2025.sigmod.org/visa.shtml
I am disappointed to see that Brown no longer requires me to rate the artistic ability of the people I am recommending me for PhD admissions in CS. I was enjoying the mandatory tap dancing interview prior to agreeing to write them a letter.
December 12, 2024 at 5:49 AM
I am disappointed to see that Brown no longer requires me to rate the artistic ability of the people I am recommending me for PhD admissions in CS. I was enjoying the mandatory tap dancing interview prior to agreeing to write them a letter.
One of the biggest difference between faculty life and student life is deadlines. Deadlines for students are more intense. Feels like all or nothing, all eggs in one project. But then you can relax. I find myself having to delay all *other* important things to Wednesday or Thursday, no rest allowed
December 9, 2024 at 3:07 PM
One of the biggest difference between faculty life and student life is deadlines. Deadlines for students are more intense. Feels like all or nothing, all eggs in one project. But then you can relax. I find myself having to delay all *other* important things to Wednesday or Thursday, no rest allowed
Academic Twitter, a (very strong) Iranian student is telling me that he cannot afford the PhD application fee at Berkeley (155$, a month of his father's salary he says). Are there any solutions to request application fee waivers for international students in this situation?
Which schools allow it?
Which schools allow it?
December 8, 2024 at 12:03 AM
Academic Twitter, a (very strong) Iranian student is telling me that he cannot afford the PhD application fee at Berkeley (155$, a month of his father's salary he says). Are there any solutions to request application fee waivers for international students in this situation?
Which schools allow it?
Which schools allow it?
I guess nobody said submitting to Osdi would be easy.
But trying to reason through BFT proofs with a fever and one eye on the tsunami watch website, is just a little *too* hard.
But trying to reason through BFT proofs with a fever and one eye on the tsunami watch website, is just a little *too* hard.
December 6, 2024 at 3:00 AM
I guess nobody said submitting to Osdi would be easy.
But trying to reason through BFT proofs with a fever and one eye on the tsunami watch website, is just a little *too* hard.
But trying to reason through BFT proofs with a fever and one eye on the tsunami watch website, is just a little *too* hard.