Bio: Yannis Papakonstantinou joined the Jacobs School faculty in 1996 and got his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1997. He has published over 45 research articles in scientific journals and at conferences, and served on journal editorial boards and program committees for numerous international conferences and symposiums. He was the co-chair of WebDB 2002, is the general chair of ACM SIGMOD 2003, and the Vice Program Chair of IEEE ICDE 2004, in charge of the 'Metadata, Semistructured Data and XML' track. In 1998, Yannis received an NSF CAREER award for his work on integrating heterogeneous data. In 2000 Yannis founded Enosys Software, Inc., which provides software for XML-based querying and integration of distributed information sources. Since 2001, he is Chief Scientist of Enosys (consulting role). Yannis holds a Diploma of Electrical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens.

Research: Professor Papakonstantinou works on emerging trends in query processing, with the focus being on data integration and semistructured data (XML). As a participant in the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, he is working with other scientists on ways to improve the performance of queries directed at distributed information sources. He is also working on ways to apply database technology and deal more effectively with 'semi-structured' data (ie, data that does not fit easily into the tabular form of conventional relational databases). His interests also include keyword queries, XML databases, and stream data processing. Papakonstantinou can also speak about business and academe, having stepped down as interim CEO of Enosys Software Inc., the company he founded in 2000 while on leave from UCSD. The company provides software for XML-based querying and integration of distributed sources.