Department of EECS names Samuel Madden next faculty head of computer science

Sam Madden will serve as the next Faculty Head of Computer Science, effective August 1, 2024. In this role, he succeeds longtime community member Arvind, who passed suddenly on June 17. 

Madden earned his BS and MEng from MIT in 1999 and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 2003. A member of the MIT EECS faculty since 2004, he was recognized as the inaugural College of Computing Distinguished Professor of Computing in 2020. A principal investigator in CSAIL, Madden’s research interest is in database systems, focusing on database analytics and query processing, ranging from clouds to sensors to modern high-performance server architectures.  He co-directs the Data Systems for AI Lab initiative and the Data Systems Group, investigating issues related to systems and algorithms for data focusing on applying new methodologies for processing data, including applying machine learning methods to data systems and engineering data systems for applying machine learning at scale.

Madden was named one of MIT Technology Review’s Top 35 Under 35 in 2005 and an ACM Fellow in 2020, and is the recipient of several awards, including a NSF CAREER award, a Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the ACM SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations Award, and “test of time” awards from VLDB, SIGMOD, SIGMOBILE, and SenSys. He is also the co-founder and Chief Scientist at Cambridge Mobile Telematics, which develops technology to make roads safer and drivers better.