08
Apr
2026
Upcoming
Hard Sciences
Prof. Willy Zwaenepoel
Resident Researcher
University of Sydney, Australia
Mar 2026 – Apr 2026
Biography
Willy Zwaenepoel received his BS and MS degrees from Ghent University in 1979, and his MS and PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1980 and 1984, respectively. He is currently a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Sydney.
Throughout his academic career, he has held several prominent leadership and faculty positions. Prior to joining the University of Sydney, he served on the faculty at Rice University in the United States. He later became Dean of the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), one of Europe’s leading institutions in science and technology. At the University of Sydney, he also served as Dean of Engineering, contributing to the development and strategic growth of one of Australia’s largest engineering faculties.
Professor Zwaenepoel has also been actively involved in innovation and technology transfer. He has participated in the creation and development of several technology startups, most notably Nutanix (Nasdaq: NTNX), a global leader in cloud computing and hyperconverged infrastructure.
His research has had a lasting impact on the fields of operating systems, distributed systems, and storage systems, areas in which he has contributed foundational ideas and widely cited work. His research has influenced both academic research directions and the design of modern large-scale computing infrastructures.
In recognition of his contributions, he was elected IEEE Fellow in 1998 and ACM Fellow in 2000. He has received numerous prestigious awards for both his research and teaching, including the IEEE Kanai Award, the EuroSys Lifetime Achievement Award, the IEEE Outstanding Technical Achievement in Distributed Processing Award, and most recently the IEEE Harry Goode Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to information processing.
His current research interests focus on operating systems, distributed systems, and the software systems required to support emerging high-performance storage technologies.
Research Areas
Operating systemsDistributed systemsStorage systemsComputer systems architectureHigh-performance storage softwareCloud computing infrastructureData center systems
Residency at IAS UM6P
The residency focuses on adaptive memory management for modern data centers, where DRAM has become one of the largest capital expenditures due to the growing memory demands of large-scale applications. Despite this high cost, studies consistently show that a significant portion of memory remains underutilized, renewing interest in efficient swapping mechanisms to optimize memory usage.
The project examines the combined use of two complementary approaches to swapping: compression of infrequently accessed memory pages directly in DRAM, and offloading memory pages to high-performance SSD storage. Compression reduces memory footprint but consumes CPU resources, while SSD-based swapping introduces I/O operations yet benefits from the increasing performance of modern storage devices.
The research develops an adaptive algorithm capable of dynamically distributing swapped data between compression and SSD storage, based on real-time system conditions such as CPU load, I/O pressure, and the compressibility of memory pages. By balancing these factors, the approach aims to improve application performance and resource efficiency in large-scale computing systems.
The work contributes to the broader challenge of designing operating systems and storage architectures adapted to evolving hardware technologies, particularly within cloud infrastructures and high-performance data centers, in collaboration with researchers from Google Research, INRIA Grenoble, and the University of Sydney.
Residency Periods 1
Mar 2026 – Apr 2026
Upcoming