Expert Details
Software Engineering, Mathematical Modeling, Machine Learning, On-line Marketing
ID: 726989
California, USA
His areas of expertise span both applied SW disciplines and research areas like process modeling, decision-support algorithms and optimization. He has consistently been successful in applying his broad range of interests to concrete problems and provide innovative solutions that evolved into commercial products. He enjoys both the applied and the more formal aspects of complex engineering problems.
His commercial experience is strongly focused on distributed concurrent systems, near-real time SW architectures and SW development. He has an hands-on approach that has consistently led him to be directly involved in the development of the SW products as a result of his research outputs. He is proficient in Java, C/C++, object-orient designs.
His recent work has been in the area of on-line marketing for larger-volume commercial platforms. His achievements and interests include Bayesian modeling, regression, decision tree, time series analysis, forecasting and yield optimization.
At Adconion, Expert is leading the optimization/data-mining team. One of the main tasks in this role is to function as a consultant to different company groups/divisions and provide business-intelligence, tools/algorithms that effectively address ad-hoc problems. In this context, for instance, he proposed: *) Naive Bayesian models to assess the effectiveness of on-line marketing strategies; *) audience segmentation models for revenue management, and *) various regression models to optimize network revenue.Expert's activity as Yahoo! Research Labs was centered in consulting with various divisions and providing architectures and systems able to address concrete needs of production systems. For instance, his work on Pig required him to directly interact with the web-indexing group and various Hadoop-based services. Expert was then able to translate this feedback into system specs and actual features in the Pig engineAd Fujitsu, the research lab role was structured in for form of consulting service to international business units. As a researcher, Expert was responsible for directly interacting with US and overseas business units, and address their needs. Research founding depended on being successful in proposing novel solutions and delivering commercial products. Expert's experience at Fujitsu, hence, can be viewed as entirely project-oriented and consulting-centric.
Education
| Year | Degree | Subject | Institution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year: 2000 | Degree: Ph.D. | Subject: Computer Science | Institution: The University of Tokyo, Japan |
| Year: 1996 | Degree: M.S. | Subject: Electronic Engineering | Institution: Polytechnic of Milan, Italy |
Work History
| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
|---|---|---|---|
| Years: 2008 to Present | Employer: Undisclosed | Title: Senior SW Architect - Lead Research Engineer | Department: Ad Server Platform |
Responsibilities:Senior SW Architect, Lead Research Engineer – Ad Serving Team, Employer, Santa Monica – California.Expert's main responsibilities can be summarized as follows: * Leading the optimization team within the Adconion ad serving platform. * Delivering large-scale SW applications that meet strict requirements for reliability (24/7) and scalability. Designing and developing machine-learning algorithms for optimal ad selection. Supported traffic volume ~500M page views per day. * Responsibilities include: 1.) definition of functional and engineering specifications to meet business requirements; 2.) design of data-mining and decision-support algorithms for optimal ad selection, network yield-management, user-segmentation and market-place design; 3.) specification of system and SW architectures; 4.) delivery of machine-leaning distributed SW applications; 5.) conducting system and algorithm performance optimization/tuning. * SW development practices include: 1.) Java as primary development language; 2.) agile SW development process and bi-weekly sprint-oriented cycles; 3.) use of the Spring framework, subversion as version control system and maven as primary SW project management tool; 4.) R, WEKA as tool-kits for data-mining and mathematical modeling. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 2007 to 2008 | Employer: Yahoo! | Title: Architect – Senior Research Engineer | Department: Yahoo! Research Labs |
Responsibilities:Architect – Senior Research Engineer – Yahoo! Research Labs, Search Technologies, Santa Clara – California.He contributed to different areas and projects including: * Designed distributed SW algorithms and architectures for automatic parallelization of data-intensive applications. Objective was to delivery new infrastructure solutions to improve company-wide search technologies and capabilities for ad-hoc analysis of extremely large data sets (supported applications include content indexing, ad serving systems, ...) * Led overall system architecture and platform design for next generation platform. Responsibilities included: 1.) specification of requirements and algorithm design with scientists at Yahoo! Labs; 2.) specification of PRD’s and ERD’s; 3.) prototyping; 4.) performance evaluation and 5.) optimizations of proposed algorithms. * Led team of SW developers co-located in overseas offices. * SW development practices included: 1.) definition of proper SW development process to support fast delivery of tools; 2.) development conducted in Java; 3.) contributing design specs and implementations to the Open-Source Apache community. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 2005 to 2007 | Employer: Yahoo! | Title: Technical Lead – Senior Software Engineer | Department: Yahoo! Content Match |
Responsibilities:Technical Lead – Senior Software Engineer – Yahoo! Search Marketing, Yahoo, Burbank – California.Expert's work in Content Match can be summarized as: * Designed and implemented real-time (and near real-time) distributed SW architectures and Bayesian optimization algorithms for the Yahoo! Content-Match Ad serving system. Essential SW design requirements included high-scalability and high-reliability necessary for a live web-based serving system that supports over one billion requests per day. * Provided technical lead and supervision for multiple projects. Responsibilities included: 1.) specifying novel product features with PM’s and Yahoo! R&D divisions; 2.) producing technical specifications; 3.) managing cross-group coordination to assure timely delivery of SW modules that meet quality and performance requirements of high-performance and high-availability (24/7); 4.) carrying out performance evaluation and optimization of distributed SW components. * Development practices included: 1.) C/C++ programming on UNIX platforms (Free-BSD and Linux); 2.) unit testing (white-box and black-box); 3.) use of static and dynamic analysis tools; 4.) stress and load tests; 5.) use of source-control and defect-control systems (CVS, bugzilla); 6.) systematic peer-based code reviews. * Led the design and delivery of a simulator for the Content Match ad serving system. Principal goals included: 1.) to prototype novel algorithms and simulate their impact on performance of the Content Match serving platform (CTR, CPC, revenue…); 1.) to provide decision support to management and product teams to guide feature prioritization. Responsibilities include: 1.) leading a group of SW developers; 2.) coordinate implementation and deployment to production of platform extensions based on simulation output. * Operational responsibilities included: 1.) real-time measurement of performance of large scale clusters consisting of a number of servers in the excess of 230; 2.) debugging of defects relating to performance and quality of user-experience; 3.) timely release of SW enhancements to live serving systems; * Additional responsibilities: 1.) serving on the committees of international conferences; 2.) mentoring junior SW engineers; 3.) participate in architecture design reviews; 4.) recruiting interns. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 2001 to 2005 | Employer: Fujitsu | Title: Researcher | Department: Fujitsu Laboratories of America |
Responsibilities:Network SW Engineer, Member of Research Staff, IP Networking Research Group, Fujitsu Laboratories of America, Sunnyvale – California.Expert conducted research pertaining several projects. The focus of his activities was as follows: * R&D activities included: development of network traffic models for performance measurement and real-time detection of misconfigurations in LAN’s and WAN’s; development of network monitoring and management algorithms for distributed TCP/IP-based architectures. * SW Development included: 1.) validation of novel network protocols and algorithms via discrete event simulation; 2.) development of prototypes for initial deployment of research output in live scenarios; 3.) transfer of research output to Fujitsu central laboratory and business units. Tasks include release of documentation and close cooperation with a virtual team of researchers and developers in production units overseas. * Products: ERE: tool for detection of traffic anomalies and security threads (such as denial of service attacks) by data analysis of MIB/SNMP statistics. Worked on this product as project lead. Prototype is being deployed in a test production network. NetMiDAs: misconfiguration detection tool based on end-to-end traffic analysis. Tool identifies anomalies at MAC layer caused by Ethernet misconfiguration. Worked on this product as project lead. Tool is currently commercialized by Fujitsu as part of a network-troubleshooting suite and deployed in customers’ datacenters. PAVAIL: Tool for dynamic measurement of bandwidth. * Patents (US and EU Patent and Trademark Office): 1.) “Detection of Network Misconfigurations”; 2.) “Method And System for Detecting a Network Anomaly in a Network” * Additional responsibilities: 1.) administer laboratory. Tasks include designing testbed network architecture, purchasing equipment (switches, routers…), conducting experiments; 2.) recruitment, development and supervision of staff interns; 3.) work in the function of liaison between Fujitsu Labs and universities on joint research projects (Boston University, University of California at Davis, San Jose State University); 4.) Serving as technical reviewer for international conferences and journals. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 2000 to 2001 | Employer: Microsoft | Title: SW Design Engineer | Department: Windows Media Technologies |
Responsibilities:SW Design Engineer, Microsoft, Redmond – Washington, Member of the “Windows Media Server” and “Windows Media Networking” teams.He contributed to core multimedia streaming technologies on the Windows Media platform. His work includes: * Core Server: extended the server plug-in architecture and implemented new features for several plug-ins, including: Control Protocol, Archive, Cache-Proxy and Parsers plug-ins. Implemented memory management and performance optimizations. * Multimedia Formats and Media Parsers: responsible for server media parser plug-ins; extended existing media parsers functionality and implemented new generation of parsers; worked on multimedia encoding formats such as the Microsoft ASF (Advanced Streaming Format) V1, ASF V2 and MP3. * Networking: implemented network-based server/client features, including: 1.) algorithms for efficient detection of client-server link bandwidth (MS patented technology); 2.) RTSP protocol module features; 3.) Quality of Service support. * SW Development practice included: 1.) C++ as programming language; 2.) multi-thread programming 3.) COM (Component Object Model) and IDL (Interface Definition Language) as component based technologies for SW reuse; 4.) memory profiling tools; 5.) network monitoring tools; 6.) in-house SW revision systems: code-base to manage was above 1,200,000 lines. * Additional responsibilities: actively contributed throughout the entire life cycle of the product by cooperating with several other teams involved in the development effort. Was able to meet critical deadlines for various release cycles and deliverables. Worked closely with Program Managers, contributed to feature definitions and specification, assisted test teams to deploy effective test plans based on the release cycles. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 1997 to 2000 | Employer: PDC Consortium | Title: SW Engineer | Department: Compiler Workgroup |
Responsibilities:SW Engineer – Compiler Engineer, The Parallel and Distributed Computing (PDC) Consortium (Compiler Workgroup, member) - Japan.The tasks Expert performed include: 1.) release SW tools for purposes of research about development of optimizing compilers; 2.) collect feedback and further requirement specifications; 3.) manage new releases of SW tools via fast prototyping cycles. 4.) document developed SW. |
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Career Accomplishments
| Associations / Societies |
|---|
| ACM Italian Association of Electronic Engineers |
| Professional Appointments |
|---|
| * Member of the Program Committee of The 4th International Workshop on Software Product Line Testing, Tokyo, Japan, September 2007. * Member of the Program Committee of The 8th International Conference for Young Computer Scientists, Beijing, China, September 2005. |
| Publications and Patents Summary |
|---|
| Expert holds two international patents: 1.) “Detection of Network Misconfigurations”; 2.) “Method And System for Detecting a Network Anomaly in a Network” He has several publications: * A. Expert, Pig: a framework for ad-hoc massively parallel data-analysis, Seminar, Polytechnic of Milan, School of SW Engineering, Milan, Italy, January 2008. * A. Expert, J. He, T. Chujo, T. Katsuyama, Active Misconfiguration Detection in Ethernet Networks based on Analysis of End-to-End Traffic Anomalies, Proceedings of IEEE Globecom 2004, pp. 134-140, Dallas, TX, December 2004. * A. Expert, T. Hamada, T. Katsuyama, A Wavelet-Based Framework for Proactive Detection of Network Misconfigurations, Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM’04, Workshop on Network Troubleshooting, pp. 213-218, Portland, OR, September 2004. * A. Expert, A Generalized Framework for Effective Network Anomaly Detection, Seminar, University of California at Davis, CA, May 2004. * A. Expert, Detection of Media-Access Conflicts in Ethernet Networks, Seminar, University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI, February 2003. * A. Expert, The Design of Intermediate Program Representations for Optimizing Compilers, Seminar, The University of Tokyo, Japan, July 1999. * A. Expert, S. Sakai, H. Tanaka, Evaluation of a Type-Inference Framework for Java Applications, Proceedings of the ACM Workshop on Java for High-Performance Computing, ACM International Conference on Supercomputing (ICS99), pp. 67-74, Rhodes, Greece, June 1999. * A. Expert, S. Sakai, H. Tanaka, Inter-procedural Analysis for Parallelization of Java Programs, Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Parallel Computation (ACPC99) (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag), pp. 594-595, Salzburg, Austria, February 1999. * A. Expert, H. Tanaka, A Topological Approach for Strict Local Testability, Journal of Congressus Numerantium, Vol. 130, pp. 199-208, December 1998. * A. Expert, Strictly Locally Testable Automata, 29th International Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory and Computing, Boca Raton, FL, March 1998. * A. Expert, H. Tanaka, A Procedure for K-Local Testability, SIGAL Workshop Proceedings of the Special Interest Group on Algorithms, pp. 51-57, Kashiwazaki, Japan, November 1997. |
Additional Experience
| Training / Seminars |
|---|
| Because the problems Expert tackles on a daily basis require novel R&D solutions, he belongs to professional organizations (for instance ACM.) This enables him to be knowledgeable about latest and most effective approaches. Expert has been able to develop and maintain valuable contacts with various universities. He has regularly contributed to the community serving as a reviewer and committee member for various international workshops and conferences. |
| Marketing Experience |
|---|
| Expert has, on many occasions, worked as third-party independent expert in assessing the technical viability and potential of new start-ups or new products. Typically, this was part of company acquisition probes. His expert opinion informed management and product strategic planning. |
Language Skills
| Language | Proficiency |
|---|---|
| Italian | Native speaker. |
Fields of Expertise
application software, automated data collection, business intelligence, computer software, concurrent software engineering, data analysis, data mining, electronic marketing, object-oriented analysis, object-oriented design, object-oriented development, rapid-prototyping software, software engineering, software engineering systems design, software systems requirements definition, statistical data analysis, Internet, Java, optimization, optimization theory programming system