Rachel Pottinger

I'm an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of British Columbia (in Vancouver) where I am affilated with the Data Management and Mining group. I finished my PhD in the database group in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the University of Washington.

Research

• Coordinating data and updates from sources that are related but have very little exact overlap. For example, in building a building, an architect will create a design, and then an estimator will estimate the costs. If the design changes, the estimate must be redone, largely from scratch, including determining where changes have occurred in the design. This is joint work with Michael Lawrence and Sheryl Staub-French.
• IDEAS2.0: Integrative Data-Enabled Approaches to Sustainability across Scales. Many communities have set aggressive economic, environmental and social sustainability targets. Meeting these ambitious targets requires better, faster and less expensive ways of evaluating different design options and tradeoffs against the most important performance measures (e.g., cost, energy consumption, quality of life). The problem is that the data and evidence needed to support this evaluation originates from many different sources, scales, and formats. This diversity of data makes it challenging for decision-makers to access the information they need, in the right format and at the right time in the collaborative decision-making process. Our long-term goal is to help organizations make better sustainability decisions.
• Studying requirements-driven data warehousing construction that uses large, realistic, data collections and associated user scenarios and case studies. In particular, we have created a framework of conceptual, mapping, and storage layers, much like EDM (in the relational world), only for data warehouses. This is joint work with Charles (Zhaohong) Chen, Yun Lou, Jamila Salari, Dibesh Shakya, and Melsa Smith at UBC and Iluju Kiringa, Flavio Rizzolo, Kwok Wong, and Fatemeh Nargesian at the University of Ottawa. Information about some of these topics can be found by looking at my publications.

  Students

  One of the great things about this job is that I get to work with a great group of students (see the list below). If you're interested in becoming a prospective graduate student in my group, please start with the information here.

  Current Students and Postdocs

  • Jamila Salari (MSc)
  • Joyce Zhu (BSc)
  • Melsa Smith (MSc)
  • Michael Lawrence (PhD)
  • Pirooz Chubak (Postdoc)
  • Simona Radu (MSc)
  • Wei Sun (MSc)

  Graduate Alumni and first positions post graduation

  • Jian Xu (PhD) (Employed at Microsoft)
  • Charles (Zhaohong) Chen (MSc) (Employed at Facebook)
  • Tianyu Li (MSc) - coadvised with Laks Lakshmanan (Employed at Microsoft)
  • Dibesh Shakya (MSc) (Employed at Ideaca Knowledge Services)
  • Ali Moosavi (MSc) - coadvised with Laks Lakshmanan (Employed at SAP)
  • April Webster (MSc) (Employed at IBM Research, Almaden)
  • Jiemin Zhang (MSc) (Employed at Broadridge Financial Solutions)
  • Andrew Carbonetto (MSc, 2008) (co-advised with Francis Ouellette) (Employed at MDA)
  • Michael DiBernardo (MSc, 2007) (Employed at PlateSpin/Novell)
  • Shuan Wang (MSc, 2007) (co-advised with Laks Lakshmanan) (Employed at Microsoft)
  • Xun Sun (MSc, 2006) (Employed at Microsoft)
  • Ting Wang (MSc, 2006) (PhD student at Georgia Tech)
  • Jie Zhao (MSc, 2006) (Employed at Barclays Capital (Singapore))

  Undegraduate alumni

• Melsa Smith
• Yun Lou
• Piam Kiarostami
• Jamila Salari
• April Webster
• Clarence Kwan
• San Chang
• Kevin Irmscher
• Alex Shyr

  Teaching

  • CPSC 534P: Topics in Data Management (Metadata Management) - Winter Session 2011 Term 1
  • CPSC 304: Introduction to Relational Databases - Summer Session 2011 Term 1
  • CPSC 504: Data Management - Winter Session 2010 Term 1
  • CPSC 304: Introduction to Relational Databases - Winter Session 2009 Term 2
  • CPSC 504: Data Management - Winter Session 2009 Term 1
  • CPSC 504: Data Management - Winter Session 2008 Term 2
  • CPSC 111: Introduction to Computation - Winter Session 2008 Term 1
  • CPSC 304: Introduction to Relational Databases - Winter Session 2006 Term 2
  • CPSC 504: Data Management - Winter Session 2006 Term 1
  • CPSC 504: Data Management - Winter Session 2005 Term 2
  • CPSC 304: Introduction to Relational Databases - Winter Session 2005 Term 1
  • CPSC 534A: Topics in Data Management (Metadata Management) - Winter Session 2004 Term 2

  On the personal side of life, I'm married to Steve Wolfman and the mother of Naomi. You can also find a bit about my personal history, or see my CV.

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  Rachel Pottinger
  E-mail Address:
  Office Location: ICICS/CS 345
  Phone: (604)822-0436
  Fax:(604)822-5485
  Postal/Courier address:
  The Department of Computer Science
  University of British Columbia
  201-2366 Main Mall
  Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4
  Canada