Faculty Profiles

Vianu is an expert in query languages, primarily their expressiveness and complexity.
One contribution to classical database theory is the "relational machine," devised to better account for computational complexity in modern databases. Relational databases are accessed through abstract interfaces, making them easier to use, but masking low-level details both from users and classical mechanisms for analyzing complexity, such as Turing machines. Relational machines capture such complexity. Beyond relational databases, Vianu has worked on XML, a common standard for data exchange, bringing to bear automata theory for analyzing modern XML query languages. Vianu developed type-checking algorithms to guarantee the robustness of applications built using XML; studied database response to queries with only partial information available; and, explored how useful data can be extracted from streams of XML wrapped data. Vianu has also worked on spatial databases, showing how queries can take advantage of annotations about the spatial data. For example, topological data about a geographic information system can significantly speed up query processing. Most recently, Vianu has been focusing on verification of database-driven systems, an area at the boundary of databases and computer-aided verification. His current research focuses on automatic verification of interactive data-driven Web services and business processes.

Capsule Bio:

Victor Vianu received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California in 1983 and joined UC San Diego in 1984.  He has also spent numerous sabbaticals as invited professor at INRIA, where he has held an International Chair. Vianu's interests include database theory, computational logic, and Web data. His most recent research focuses on specification and verification of data‐driven Web services and workflows. 
Vianu's publications include over 100 research articles and a graduate textbook on database theory. He received the PODS Alberto Mendelzon Test‐of‐Time Award twice, in 2010 and 2015, and the ICDT Test-of-Time Award in 2019. Vianu has given numerous invited talks including keynotes at PODS, ICDT, STACS, the Annual Meeting of the Association of Symbolic Logic, and the Federated Logic Conference. He has served as General Chair of SIGMOD and PODS, and Program Chair of the PODS and ICDT conferences. He served for six years as Editor‐in-Chief of the Journal of the ACM and is Area Editor of ACM Transactions on Computational Logic. Vianu was elected Fellow of the ACM in 2006, Fellow of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) in 2013, and is a member of Academia Europaea.