I am an Associate Professor in the Computer Science & Engineering department at University of Michigan, where I lead the Order Lab. Prior to joining U-M, I was an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins CS department from 2017 to 2022.

I have broad research interests in computer systems including OS and distributed systems. I am particularly interested in designing principled techniques to enable reliable, efficient, and defensible systems from large data centers to small mobile devices.

My lab has openings for postdocs, graduate and undergraduate student interns. I’m looking for students who are self-motivated and have strong interests in systems building and research. Prospective students please read this page.

News

Research

A major focus of my recent research is to push for higher availability and observability of next-generation cloud systems. This includes a series of projects in multiple thrusts:

I also research on energy-efficient mobile systems (e.g., LeaseOS, DefDroid, eDoctor) and preventing system misconfigurations (e.g., Violet, ConfValley).

Recent Select Publications

(Full publication list)

Students

I am very fortunate to work with a wonderful group of students.

Professional Service

Bio

I received my Ph.D. from UCSD, advised by Prof. Yuanyuan Zhou. Before joining Hopkins, I took one year off at MSR Redmond Systems Group to gain exposure to real-world system challenges in a state-of-the-art cloud service, Microsoft Azure. I received B.S. (Computer Science) and B.A. (Economics) from Peking University.


Note: Ryan is my English name. For legal documents and publications, Peng Huang is used.


Check out Phair, Patternful AI, and CircleCoder