THOMAS ZUREK Address Department of Computer Science King's Buildings, JCMB 2412 Mayfield Road Edinburgh EH9 3JZ United Kingdom Tel.: + 44 (0)131 6505962 Fax: + 44 (0)131 6677209 Email: tz@dcs.ed.ac.uk

Where I am from:

I am from Heilbronn in the south-western part of Germany (map). This town is located about 50 km north of Stuttgart.

Where I studied:

I did my undergraduate degree in the Fakultät für Informatik of the Universität Karlsruhe. During that time I spent one year at Edinburgh University as a non-graduating student and three months as a visting academic at the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC). If you are interested in my experience to do parts of your informatics degree in Edinburgh then look at this page. In 1994 I returned to Edinburgh to do my PhD. See below for more information on that.

Where I worked:

During my studies I was a part-time collaborator for Helix Software (Stuttgart) and Generex Systems (Hamburg) working on projects for companies such as Daimler-Benz, Robert Bosch GmbH, Siemens or Hewlett-Packard.

In general, my research interests are

• parallel and temporal databases,
• data warehousing,
• database design and implementation,
• commercial parallel database management systems,
• recursive query processing,
• parallel programming,
• expert systems

Sports

I love doing sports and have already tried lots of them. Tennis is definitely my favourite. I have been playing in various teams in my club in Germany but also for Edinburgh University. Currently, I am concentrating more on squash mainly due to the easy access that we have around King's Buildings. I participate squash ladder and play in the team Los Merengues in the intramural division 3. I also like badminton and many other sports such as skiing, swimming, mountain biking, football, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, snooker and golf.

Spain, Venezuela, Latin America

I have a long relationship with Spain, have spent a lot of time and have many friends over there. Through my wife and many friends I have gained a considerable interest in Venezuela and other latin american countries. I love to read Alexander von Humboldt's diaries on the trips he did through (what was later) Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico and Cuba at the beginning of the 19th century.

International and economical policies

I have a steady interest in what is going on around the world. I regularly read newspapers and political and economical magazines such as the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, The Economist, El Pais and others.