Elliot Yan, Staff Scientist

Elliot Yan serves centergate research as a staff scientist, bringing in expertise in networking, operating systems, distributed systems, and performance analyses. A man of many guises, his experience ranges from designing and analyzing novel TCP algorithms, crafting multimedia art galleries, to flipping bits over PCI bus. He compliments other centergate staff with his understanding of network application design, detailed knowledge of systems, and kernels.

Elliot started hacking in his teens. As an undergraduate at University of Notre Dame, he worked on experimental projects on distributed shared memory (DSM) and two distributed file systems in IBM AIX kernel and in a home-brew microkernel.

As a graduate student at University Southern California (USC), he designed and implemented the widely used real-time wide area network (WAN) emulator that turns a highspeed local area network into an emulated WAN such that new congestion control algorithms can be prototyped and analyzed in a controlled setting beyond the traditional simulation environment. Then he used his tool to evaluate and improve upon TCP SACK and the contraversial TCP Vegas congestion control algorithm.

Always an entrepreneur, he has consulted for Myricom, a USC/Caltech startup, for 4 years as an OS and cluster messaging expert. Experienced in many UNIX platforms including BSDs, Solaris, DEC OSF, HPUX, and Linux, he wrote and optimized raw I/O, IP, zero-copy, MP-safe and MP-ready device drivers for their gigabit networks. His software is used by Inktomi search engine products, and depolyed by various supercomputing outfits such as Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

He spent a year as a researcher at Hughes Research Lab in Malibu studying various issues in transport and routing protocols over satellite links. He also spent a year working at the DEC western research lab (WRL) on the ArtBytes project where he worked with artist Barbara Lee in creating multimedia art chambers where users' interaction with the environment changes the presentation of the art; hence viewers participate in the creation of art. The art chambers were exhibited at Center for visual art at Oakload, Vorpal Gallery at San Francisco, and ArtTech at San Jose in 1998.

Elliot has a B.S in Computer Engineering and an M.S. in Computer Science. He has taught undergraduate and advanced OS at USC. He has published in a number of conferences, including SIGCOMM, on the topic of TCP Vegas and TCP SACK. He is also a frequent reviewer for SIGCOMM, INFOCOMM, MOBICOMM, SOSP, and SIGMETRICS. He has also studied at Marshall School of Business at USC.

 

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