Laura M. Haas is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

noted for her research in

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

systems and

information integration Information integration (II) is the merging of information from heterogeneous sources with differing conceptual, contextual and typographical representations. It is used in data mining and consolidation of data from unstructured or semi-structured ...

. She is best known for creating systems and tools for the integration of heterogeneous data from diverse sources, including federated technology that virtualizes access to data, and mapping technology that enables non-programmers to specify how data should be integrated. She led the Starburst project on extensible database systems, showing how diverse information could be integrated into a relational database. Her research was the foundation for IBM's DB2 LUW query processor. She was the overall architect for Garlic, a novel data federation system that provides integrated access to many data sources from a high-level nonprocedural language, and personally invented and implemented query optimization techniques that allowed Garlic to process queries efficiently, exploiting the capabilities of the underlying data sources. Haas led the development of IBM InfoSphere Federation Server based on this technology, and was the technical lead of the IBM team which helped establish the enterprise information integration market. Laura also led the Clio project, inventing the concept and basic algorithms for schema mapping, and embodying them in the first tool to compute necessary transformations to bring data from diverse sources into a common format automatically. She provided thought leadership and pursued research around information integration, most recently in the context of

big data Though used sometimes loosely partly because of a lack of formal definition, the interpretation that seems to best describe Big data is the one associated with large body of information that we could not comprehend when used only in smaller am ...

, through her role as the Director of IBM Research's Accelerated Discovery Lab.

Biography

Haas received an

A.B. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathematical s ...

and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1978. She received a

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1981. In 1981, Haas began as a research staff member at

IBM Almaden Research Center IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research org ...

, and has spent her career at

IBM Research IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research org ...

(with a one-year visiting fellow position at

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

in 1992–1993). She has held numerous positions within

, including as

IBM Fellow An IBM Fellow is an appointed position at IBM made by IBM's CEO. Typically only four to nine (eleven in 2014) IBM Fellows are appointed each year, in May or June. Fellow is the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achie ...

and Director of IBM Research Accelerated Discovery Lab. She was appointed dean of the College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in August 2017. She is married to Peter J. Haas, also a longtime IBM Research member who moved with her to Amherst.

Awards

In 2006, Haas was named an ACM Fellow "for research leadership, and contributions to federated database systems". In 2010, she was elected to the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

"for innovations in the design and implementation of systems for information integration". In 2010, Haas received the ABIE Technical Leadership Award at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. In 2015 she became the winner of the SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations Award.Dr. Laura Haas is the recipient of the 2015 SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovation Award

SIGMOD SIGMOD is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Management of Data, which specializes in large-scale data management problems and databases. The annual ACM SIGMOD Conference, which began in 1975, is considered one of ...

, retrieved 2015-06-21.

References

External links

* IBM Profile: Laura Haas

��not accessible to the public
Laura Haas | IEEE Computer Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haas, Laura M. American women computer scientists Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Living people Harvard University alumni Database researchers IBM employees IBM Fellows IBM Research computer scientists University of Texas at Austin College of Natural Sciences alumni American computer scientists Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty