Welcome!

Yanpei Chen

My nice half and my evil half : ) Can you tell which is which?

ychen [at] berkeley [dot] edu. Last updated February 2012.

Research Interests

I am interested in Internet datacenters. Datacenters are the nexus of information that facilitate storage, index, search, and other core Internet functionalities. They are a microcosm of the wider Internet, presenting its own design and research challenges. They also represent a highly managed environment within leading Internet businesses, offering the opportunity for experimentation with immediate impact. My current interests include MapReduce/Hadoop energy efficiency, and datacenter workload characterization. Recently I've also developed an interest in cloud computing security, a new area that's still somewhat blurry - hopefully what little knowledge I have about datacenters will be helpful. I am a member of the AMP Lab (formerly RAD Lab) at UC Berkeley, and my research advisor is Professor Randy H. Katz. I have on-going collaborations with RAD Lab industry partners, most recently including Cloudera, NetApp, and Facebook.

Recently we released a Statistical Workload Injector for MapReduce (SWIM), which includes workload synthesis/replay tools and some workloads pre-generated from Facebook production MapReduce traces. You can learn more about SWIM in our MASCOTS 2011 paper.

Publications / Talks

Other random stuff

Outside of research, I am interested in the overlap between technology and other non-techical traditions. At various times, I have ventured into high-tech business, cyberlaw, technology policy, technology culture, scientific history, information and innovation studies, technology education, and other similar areas. I believe that business, law, politics, culture, policy, and education are all intimately connected with technology. They affect each other in complex ways, and will become even more mutally dependent in the future. I think we computer scientists should participate in the discussion and contribute our unique perspectives. Some half-presentable work from the past:

Personal stuff

I was born in China, my whole family is in the United States, and I am technically an Australian. I hold interests unique to each country - I do Chinese caligraphy, I love College Football (Go Bears!!!), and I still itch to play cricket. I went to an all-guys public high school in Australia, and apparently I still owe the teachers there some homework and beer and lost bets. I had a wonderful time as undergrad here at UC Berkeley. I am a graduate student now, but I will always be an undergrad at heart. My parents are chemists/chemical engineers; they live and work in New York. I play computer games a lot (most recently Civilization 4, Rome Total War, and Starcraft 2), I once was addicted to Friends, I'm reading the Game of Throne series and plan to re-read 100 Years of Solitude (didn't fully "get it" the first time but found it awesome), and I love Clint Eastwood and Al Pacino movies. I play tennis/badminton/table-tennis, I've made a home-recorded album for classical guitar, I hike sporadically, and I've lost $8 playing chess against homeless guys. Recently I've taken up archery - still a newbie shooting a 25-pound bow at 30 yards. I've also taken up fencing - doing obligatory newbie French-Grip foil. I'm currently focused on trying to not get hit so unstylishly in fencing, but alway looking for the next hobby too.

The rest to be filled later ...

Awards

Current National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow
UC Berkeley Regents and Chancellors Scholar
UC Berkeley Lipson Humanistic Values Scholar
Premier's Awards in Math, Physics, Chemistry (Victoria, Australia)
Australia Student Prize 2001