I'm a senior staff engineer working at Google, where I work on file systems and storage. I was one of the co-authors for the paper, Disks for Data Centers. One of the ideas proposed by this paper was to use disks which could convert portions of the hard drive back and forth between Shingled Magnetic Recording and Conventional Magnetic Recording, or Hybrid SMR disks. I led the team which introduced Hybrid SMR Disks into Google's data centers. One of my 20% projects at Google was to create ext4 encryption which was the basis for File-based Encryption for Android, and which is used to encrypt users' data on ChromeOS.
I've worked on the Linux kernel since 1991, and am probably the first Linux Kernel developer in North America. I am the maintainer for the ext4 file system, and created the gce-xfstests and kvm-xfstests test appliance system which automates testing the Linux kernel's file systems. I also collaborated with Eric Biggers to create android-xfstests which installs and runs the xfstests test appliance used by kvm-xfstests and gce-xfstests on an Android device.
I organize the annual Linux Kernel Summit, which brings together the top 75 Linux Kernel Developers in the world every year. I am often involved with the Linux, Storage, File System, and MM Summit. For more information, please see the Linux Foundation Events Page.
I previously worked at MIT in Information Systems, where I used to be the development team leader for Kerberos. Before that, I also was a member of the Network Operations Group.
I used to be quite active in the Internet Engineering Task Force, having previously served on the IETF's Security Area Directorate. I also served as the co-chairs of the ONC RPC and IP Security working groups, and as one of the sergeant-at-arms for the IETF mailing list. Unfortunately I don't have time to be very active in the IETF these days.
Although I'm primarily a Unix and Linux developer, I have also done a lot of work on many other platforms, including Windows/Windows NT, and the Macintosh. I've collected a set of software which I consider invaluable for making Windows programming a little bit more civilized.
I currently attend Church of Our Savior, an Episcopal Church in East Arlington. I sing in the choir, and currently serve on the vestry (which roughly speaking, is the the governing board as far as business decisions are concerned for the parish). I am currently serving as the Treasurer for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.
I have a number of hobbies; in particular, I enjoy cooking and bicycling. I also spend a lot of time doing "recreational computing", including spending a lot of time hacking on Linux. I currently use a Dell XPS 13, but in the past I've spent a lot of time making older thinkpads work on Linux.
I graduated from MIT in 1990, with a degree in Computer Science. While I was an undergraduate, I spent a lot of time with many various different student activities, including:
Although I'm normally not very scruffy-looking, playing with a Van de Graph generator can be an electrifying experience.
Here's a list of interesting places that I've found on the Web...
