Overview

I am a fifth year PhD student researching wireless networking and distributed systems. My current research direction is in exploring new opportunities for last-hop Internet connectivity emerging through the coupling of the widespread installation of broadband Internet and the proliferation of private 802.11 access points. My work primarily focuses on improving the availability, accessibility and performance of open Wi-Fi networks by creating new protocols and algorithms and providing real world implementations that operate within existing systems.

Education

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign		PhD Student, Computer Science
2003-present		Urbana, IL

• Research focus in wireless networking and distributed systems. GPA: 3.69/4.0

Brown University		Bachelor of Science with Honors, Computer Science
1997-2001		Providence, RI

• Concentration in Systems and Networking. GPA: 3.6/4.0

Research Experience

MOBIUS Group		Prof. Robin Kravets
2008-present		University of Illinois

Participating in the Pheonix project to research ad-hoc communication in day-after networks - networks formed with limited or unavailable access to the core Internet infrastructure.

• Researching interoperability between heterogenous ad hoc wireless networks deployed at the edge of the network or in disaster area scenarios.

SWiNG (Systems Wireless and Networking Group)		Prof. Haiyun Luo
2005-2007		University of Illinois

The Practical collaborative End-host Residential Multihoming (PERM) project seeks to capitalize on idle residential bandwidth to improve end-host connectivity performance and reliability. PERM uses 802.11 to link neighbors into a semi-mesh network. The framework includes unique predictive scheduling, user privacy management, and incentive management.

• Primary researcher on the Practical collaborative End-host Residential Multihoming (PERM) project.
• Researched schemes for collaborative Internet access to enable bandwidth sharing of wireless networks.
• Developed advanced scheduling techniques for residential multihoming.
• Implemented PERM software framework for the Linux operating system and Linksys wireless router (10,000 lines of C code).

Deutsche Telekom T-Labs		Research Intern
Summer 2006		Berlin, Germany

The Authentication on the Edge (AGE) project describes a new authentication architecture for global scale open Wi-Fi networks. A new paradigm for providing outdoor broadband access is emerging in which private entities (small businesses or residential users) open their private Wi-Fi access points to nearby users in exchange for access privileges at other users' locations. In order for these open Wi-Fi networks to gain wide adoption strict access control and traceability are needed. AGE localizes authentications to the edge of the network by requiring each user to carry all of his authentication credentials. AGE supports a social network overlay as a fall back mechanism to relieve the bottleneck and single failure point of a central authentication server.

• Primary researcher on joint T-Labs and UIUC project.
• Designed unique authentication procedure targeted at open Wi-Fi networks with millions of mobile clients.
• Implemented AGE modules for FreeRADIUS and wpa_supplicant open source software packages.

DPRG (Distributed Protocols Research Group)		Prof. Indranil Gupta
2004-2005		University of Illinois

Our design methodology for distributed protocols identifies multiple building blocks which compose many probabilistic protocols previously developed. The methodology also specifies the composition rules by which the building blocks are combined into complete protocols. The Proactive Protocol Composition Language is used to specify new protocols from existing C code based on this methodology.

• Researched methodologies for composing and designing distributed protocols.
• Developed the Proactive Protocol Composition Language (PPCL), a toolkit for composing distributed protocols.

Pablo Research Group		Prof. Dan Reed
2003-2004		University of Illinois

The Pablo research group researched areas of high performance computing including performance characterization, high speed I/O, and Grid monitoring.

• Researched temporal performance monitoring in the Grid as part of the GrADS project.

Robert Bosch GmbH FV/FLI (R&D/Systems Laboratory)		Research Intern
Summer 2000		Stuttgart, Germany

• Implemented prototype steer-by-wire system based on CAN protocol. The steer-by-wire system attempts to obsolete the traditional steering column designs with a completely electronic replacement. Challenges include fault tolerance and message priority.

Work Experience

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NCSA		Graduate Research Programmer
2004-2005		Urbana, IL

The Distributed Applications Support Team at NCSA was part of the National Laboratory of Advanced Network Research. The group developed tools for monitoring and managing high performance networks.

• Designed and implemented an advanced tool for network monitoring and analysis (the Network Performance Advisor) which allows end-users to diagnose common Internet problems based on gathered metrics.
• Programmed around 8000 lines of Java code.

Sun Microsystems		Member Technical Staff
2001-2003		Santa Clara, CA

• Assessed and validated incoming customer reports regarding inconsistencies in the Java Development Kit including core Java, Java Web Start, JSSE, the Java compiler and JFC.
• Assisted in designing and implementing internal tools in JSP, Java, Perl, sh, sql, sed and awk.

Publications

1. Nathanael Thompson, Petros Zerfos, Robert Sombrutzki, Jens-Peter Redlich and Haiyun Luo. ``100% Organic: Design and Implementation of Self-Sustaining Cellular Networks'', Proceedings ACM HotMobile, Napa Valley, USA, February, 2008

2. Nathanael Thompson, Haiyun Luo, Petros Zerfos, Jatinder Singh, Zuoning Yin. ``Extended Abstract: Authentication on the Edge - Distributed Authentication for a Global Open Wi-Fi Network'', Proceedings ACM MobiCom, Montréal, Canada, September, 2007

3. Ercan Ucan, Nathanael Thompson, Indranil Gupta. ``A PiggyBacking Approach to Reduce Overhead in Sensor Network Gossip'', Proceedings ACM MIDSENS, Newport Beach, USA, November, 2007

4. Nathanael Thompson, Guanghui He, Haiyun Luo. ``Flow Scheduling for End-host Multihoming,'' Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM, Barcelona, Spain, April, 2006

5. Indranil Gupta, Steve Ko, Nathanael Thompson, Mehwish Nagda, Christo F. Devaraj, Ramsés Morales, Jay A. Patel. ``A Case for Methodology Research in Self-* Distributed Systems,'' LNCS 3460, Self-Star Properties in Complex Information Systems (eds: O. Babaoglu et al), pages 260-272, 2005

Technical Reports

1. Nathanael Thompson, Haiyun Luo, ``PERM: A Collaborative System for Residential Internet Access,'' Technical Report UIUCDCS-R-2006-2751, University of Illinois, July, 2006

2. Nathanael Thompson, Indranil Gupta, Kenneth Birman. ``A Composition Methodology for Designing Proactive Distributed Protocols,'' Technical Report UIUCDCS-R-2004-2490, University of Illinois, October, 2004

Posters

1. Guanghui He, Nathanael Thompson, Haiyun Luo. ``Individual User WLAN Traffic Analysis,'' Poster, ACM MobiHoc, Champaign, Illinois, May, 2005

Awards

• 2006: Recipient of the Deutsche Telekom PAM (PhD - Advisor - Mentor) fellowship.

Teaching Experience

Graduate Teaching Assistant - CS241: System Programming		University of Illinois
Fall 2006

CS241 is an undergraduate level course teaching introductory systems programming and Operating Systems concepts.

• Led two weekly discussion sections of 20 students.
• Designed and graded student programming assignments.
• Wrote student homeworks and co-wrote exams.

Graduate Teaching Assistant - CS438: Computer Networks		University of Illinois
Spring 2006

CS438 is a mixed senior / graduate level class teaching introductory concepts in networking. Students also complete advanced systems programming assignments.

• Developed homeworks and programming assignments.
• Delivered several lectures and held office hours.

Technical Skills

Operating Platform(s):	Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris 2.6-2.8
Programming Languages:	C, Java, perl, sed, awk, sh, C++
Web Technologies:	JSP, JavaScript, HTML, CGI, SQL
Other Technologies:	subversion (CVS), vi, LaTeX, gdb

References

References available upon request.