I am a member of the Database Group. I work on various aspects database systems, mostly related to data integration and transaction processing.
For the past 15 years, I have worked on data integration, and for the past ten in the context of my Model Management Project, currently in close collaboration with James Terwilliger. The long term goal is to make database systems easier to use for model-driven applications, such as design tools, message translators, and database translators. The current focus is object-to-relational mapping, especially in support of the ADO.NET Entity Framework. Over the years, this work has been done in close collaboration with Sergey Melnik (now at Google), and with Suad Alagic (Univ. of Southern Maine), Alon Halevy (Google), Jayant Madhavan (Google), René Miller (Univ. of Toronto), Peter Mork (MITRE Corp.), Rachel Pottinger (Univ. of British Columbia), Christoph Quix (Technical Univ. of Aachen), Erhard Rahm (Univ. of Leipzig), and many great interns too numerous to list here.
My early research was primarily on transaction processing and, after a long hiatus, I have recently resumed working in this area. I have published the following two books on the subject.
- Principles of Database Systems, coauthored with Eric Newcomer, is published by Morgan-Kauffman Publishers, a division of Elsevier.
- Concurrency Control and Recovery in Database Systems, coauthored with Vassos Hadzilacos and Nathan Goodman, is downloadable for free from here.
I've also published many research papers on transaction processing, data integration, and other aspects of database management. You can find a complete list at the DBLP Computer Science Bibliography.
Watch this space for a forthcoming selection of papers, organized by topic.
Professional Activities
- Affiliate Professor at University of Washington, where I teach CSEP 545 Transaction Processing.
- Computing Research Association (CRA): Treasurer, Member of the Board of Directors. See also Best Practices Memo: University-Industry Sponsored Research Agreements.
- Member of the Board on Mathematical Sciences and Applications (The National Academies).
- Editor in Chief:The VLDB Journal
- Institute of Technology, University of Washington, Tacoma: Member of the Technical Advisory Board
- Editorial Board member: Information Systems, World Wide Web: Internet and Web Information Systems, Web Semantics , Data-Centric Systems & Applications (a Springer-Verlag book series).
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
Email: philbe@microsoft.com
Phone: (425) 706-2838
Fax: (425) 708-2587





