Boon Thau Loo

Boon Thau Loo is the RCA Professor in the Computer and Information Science (CIS) department at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in Electrical and Systems Engineering. He leads the NetDB@Penn research group and is an active member of both the Distributed Systems Lab and the Penn database group. His honors include the NSF CAREER Award (2009), AFOSR Young Investigator Award (2012), Penn’s Emerging Inventor of the Year Award (2018), EDBT Best Paper (2020), the Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Excellence in Teaching (2021), the University Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching (2022), an NSDI Outstanding Paper Award (2024), the ISAY International Student Advocate of the Year Award from Penn ISSS (2024), and election to the National Academy of Inventors (2025). He has advised 20 Ph.D. graduates, five of whom received dissertation awards. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley in 2006, his M.S. from Stanford University in 2000, and his B.S. with highest honors from UC Berkeley in 1999, and his dissertation was recognized with the 2006 David J. Sakrison Memorial Prize and the 2007 ACM SIGMOD Dissertation Award.

As Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Education and Global Initiatives at Penn Engineering, Boon Thau Loo oversees all doctoral and professional master’s programs, serving roughly 6,500 students. He leads the school’s expansion into non-degree offerings, works with Penn Global to strengthen Penn Engineering’s international engagement, guides strategic investments in Engineering Entrepreneurship, and supports professional development initiatives for students across all levels. He has launched numerous major efforts, including establishing Penn Engineering Online, creating the accelerated master’s program, introducing annual graduate student awards, and developing several online degree programs—MCIT Online (the first fully online Ivy League computer science master’s for non-CS majors), MSE-DS Online (data science), and MSE-AI Online (artificial intelligence). His initiatives also include lifelong learning opportunities for alumni, a school-wide professional development course for master’s students, and semester-long academic field studies. Under his leadership, Penn Engineering’s graduate student population expanded from 1,800 to 6,500 in just seven years.