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
EXPLAIN Yourself! Finding Query Planner Stalls Across DBMSes
Conference on Innovative Data Systems Research (CIDR), 2027. To appear.
@inproceedings{explain-yu27,
title={{EXPLAIN Yourself! Finding Query Planner Stalls Across DBMSes}},
author={Yu, Geoffrey X. and Marcus, Ryan and Kraska, Tim},
year={2027},
booktitle = {{Proceedings of the Conference on Innovative Data Systems
Research}},
series = {CIDR~'27},
}
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}},
year = {2021},
series = {USENIX ATC '21},
}
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}},
year = {2020},
series = {UIST~'20},
}
* Denotes equal contribution.
Preprints
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