I am a systems researcher who likes and enjoys designing, building, and
developing complex software systems. My research aims at building
systems that perform well, making them easy to change, extend and use,
while remaining modular and pleasant to develop. My research interests
are in the areas of services and mobile
platforms, open and programmable mobile platforms (e.g.,
Android), adaptive software architectures, software
engineering, virtual machines, network programming, middleware for
mobile and distributed
computing, dynamic aspect-oriented programming, and distributed
systems.
Since November 2008 I joined
Deutsche
Telekom Inc. R&D Lab USA
located in Silicon Valley, California as a Senior Research
Scientist.
The goal of my research work at Deutsche Telekom R&D Lab
encompasses the development of open and programmable mobile platforms
(e.g., Android) and novel information technology services to shape the
emerging trends in fixed and mobile infrastructure and services
sectors. I place a high value on advancing state-of-the-art in
services
and mobile platforms, building real systems, closely collaborating with
top academic and research institutions, and having direct impact on
DTAGs products and services.
In October 2002 I joined the
Information
and
Communication
Systems
Research
Group, which is part of the
Systems
Group,
Department
of Computer Science,
ETH Zurich
(Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology Zurich) as a Research and Teaching
Assistant. My advisor was
Prof. Dr. Gustavo
Alonso. I was involved in the
National
Competence
Center
in
Research,
Mobile
Information
and
Communication
Systems
(NCCR
MICS),
IP8
(System and Software Architecture) project, supported by the
Swiss
National Science Foundation.
My Ph.D. research work has focused on the problem of dynamic
adaptation of applications through dynamic bytecode manipulations using
a variety of techniques. For my Ph.D. dissertation I developed
techniques suitable for addressing adaptability. I invented novel
mechanisms that support modification of the code of running
applications without requiring them to be shut down. This work dealt
with a variety of aspects of system design and software architecture,
including software programming, virtual machines, runtime environments,
language constructs and features, techniques, distributed applications,
and performance evaluation. I successfully defended my Ph.D.
dissertation entitled
"Controlled,
Systematic, and Efficient Code Replacement for Running Java Programs" on
December 12, 2007 at
ETH Zurich. It
was accepted on the recommendation of
Prof. Dr. Gustavo Alonso
(advisor),
Prof.
Dr. Thomas Gross (co-advisor), and
Prof. Dr. Timothy Roscoe
(co-advisor). I made a website with
pictures
taken at my Ph.D. defense held at
ETH
Zurich
and celebration afterwards.
Since 2003, I am the leader of the
PROSE
(PROgrammable
extenSions
of
sErvices) open source project.
PROSE
is an infrastructure that
supports software adaptation by extending applications at runtime. The
system performs controlled, systematic, and efficient modification of
the code of running Java applications without requiring them to be shut
down.
PROSE has powerful tools
that allow to monitor and modify the code of local and remote
applications at runtime. Integrated into an Eclipse plugin, the PROSE
Development Tools for Eclipse allows runtime monitoring and adaptation
of applications from Eclipse.
| Education & Work Experience |
I started as a Senior Research Scientist at
Deutsche
Telekom Inc. R&D Lab USA
located in Silicon Valley, California in November 2008. Prior to that,
I worked for 5 years as a Research and Teaching
Assistant at
Information
and
Communication
Systems
Research
Group, which is part of the
Systems
Group,
Department
of Computer Science,
ETH Zurich
(Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology Zurich), Switzerland. At ETH Zurich I lead
and conducted research and development in Information and Communication
Systems area. I received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from
ETH Zurich,
Switzerland,
Department
of Computer Science,
Information
and
Communication
Systems
Research
Group, which is part of the
Systems
Group, in December 2007. I lead, designed and developed the
PROSE
(PROgrammable
extenSions
of
sErvices) open source project.
While working on my Ph.D., in the summer of 2004, I was selected for
a
summer internship with
Google Inc.
in Mountain View,
California, USA. There I had the opportunity to
experience a period of actual work together with the
Google team in California, USA. I
have been exposed to the leading, cutting-edge and innovative
technologies
Google employs,
which
proved to be a great challenge and an extraordinary experience for me.
In
September
2000 I started
to
work
for 2
years on different projects
for the German company
Caatoosee AG
as a Java and C/C++ developer. I was a designer and builder of a
module of a "Search Engine", as well as working on the "IQ-Server"
project. I designed and developed two modules of the "IQ-Server"
project that were part of an advanced dynamic approach to information
logistics and its goal was to offer companies fast access to all
relevant information, irrespective of the kinds of data sources. The
dispersed data was accessed via agents, application modules installed
on individual systems, that monitor a number of data sources of a kind
and notifies upon their changes, in parallel.
I had contracts and internships
with
WebQuote
in Silicon
Valley,
as well as German and Romanian-based software companies. In the summer
of
2000, I was selected, together with 10 other students from all over
Romania, for the
American Romanian
Student Internship Program (
A.R.S.I.P.)
organized
in
association
with
high-technology
companies
from
Silicon
Valley,
USA.
There
I worked on a C++ project for
WebQuote
(now called
EmpactSoftware).
In June 2001 I graduated
Faculty
of
Automation
and
Computer
Science,
Department
of
Computer Science,
"Politehnica"
University
of
Timisoara,
Romania. My graduation thesis was called "The
Managing
Module for a Search Engine" and was programmed in Java. The graduation
project was part of a distributed web application and its purpose was
to
offer companies strong facilities of storage, indexing, searching and
highlighting
of web documents.
