Jing Shan

25 years ago, I was born in a small city in the northeast part of China. The rumor is that I cried too much at the time, so my parents named me Jing, which means quiet in Chinese. In case you are curious, no, it didn't work. I have been told many times that my personality doesn't fit my name. :-p

Anyway, after I spent 4 years in Peking University, Beijing, China, and got a BS in computer science, I decided that I still liked 'northeast' better. So I came to Northeastern in 2000. Yup, that's right. I am a 6th year PhD student now and, hopefully, I will get my degree soon. Otherwise, I am going to change my first name to Dr. That's a good backup plan, isn't it?

Although I am eager to graduate, I haven't really figured out what I want to do when I 'grow up' yet. I like the academic environment. After all, I have spent 20 years of my life on campus! But I also like industry. I was a summer intern at Microsoft and IBM for the past couple of years. It is really rewarding to see my work being used by millions of users every day. This is a hard decision to make, but I guess I need to make up my mind soon.

Oh, btw, my research interests are database systems in general and index methods, concurrency control and recovery in particular. You are welcome to discuss any of these topics with me at any time.

Despite the common belief about how busy PhD lives are, I do have time to do other things. I enjoy swimming, hiking, reading relaxing "comfort books", watching comedy movies and shopping, of course!