Zihao Zhang

Postdoctoral Associate
Department of Computer Science
Stony Brook University (SBU)

Email: zihao.zhang at stonybrook dot edu
I am currently a Postdoc in the Computer Science Department at Stony Brook University. I work with Shuai Mu and Omar Chowdhury, we are working on applying formal methods to practical distributed systems. At SBU, I also work closely with Ti Zhou.

My research interests are distributed and database systems. I'm particularly interested in:
  • Building efficient distributed database systems: Co-designing transaction protocols (e.g., concurrency control and two-phase commit) and consensus protocols to enhance transaction processing performance in modern distributed databases.
  • Building guaranteed correct distributed systems: Leveraging formal methods to enhance the correctness of distributed system design and implementation, and with automated tools to facilitate the development of verified distributed systems.
Links: Google Scholar

News

  • May 2024, D2PC accepted to VLDB'24!

    • Publications

    • Fast Commitment for Geo-Distributed Transactions via Decentralized Co-coordinators. (VLDB 2024) [pdf]
      Zihao Zhang, Huiqi Hu, Xuan Zhou, Yaofeng Tu, Weining Qian, and Aoying Zhou

    • Starry: Multi-master Transaction Processing on Semi-leader Architecture. (VLDB 2022)[pdf]
      Zihao Zhang, Huiqi Hu, Xuan Zhou, and Jiang Wang

    • SlimStore: A Cloud-based Deduplication System for Multi-version Backups. (ICDE 2021)[pdf]
      Zihao Zhang, Huiqi Hu, Zhihui Xue, Changcheng Chen, Yang Yu, Cuiyun Fu, Xuan Zhou, and Feifei Li

    • Dependency Preserved Raft for Transactions. (DASFAA 2020) [pdf]
      Zihao Zhang, Huiqi Hu, Yang Yu, Weining Qian, and Ke Shu

    Education

    Ph.D. @ East China Normal University (Sept. 2018 - Jul. 2023)
    Shanghai, China.
    Advisor: Xuan Zhou, Huiqi Hu

    B.S. @ East China Normal University (Sept. 2014 - Jul. 2018)
    Shanghai, China.

    Program committees

  • USENIX ATC 2024 (ERC), 2025

    • Experience

    Database System Research Intern. PolarDB, Alibaba, Shanghai. (Apr. 2020 - Jan. 2021)
    Worked on a system for eliminating duplicates in multiple-version database backups on cloud storage (targes the object storage service OSS).