Bell University Labs Chair

Curating knowledge

Name: Professor Renée Miller
Position: Bell University Labs Chair in Information Systems, held since 2006
Affiliation: Department of Computer Science
Education: PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Areas of Expertise: Heterogeneous databases, data mining and data warehousing

Teaching
CSC 343 Introduction to Databases
CSC 2525 Research Topics in Data Management

Publications
– Ronald Fagin et al. “Clio: Schema Mapping Creation and Data Exchange.” Conceptual Modeling:
Foundations and Applications (2009)
– Ariel Fuxman et al. “Peer data exchange.” ACM Transactions on Database Systems (2006)

Major Awards & Honours
2008     NSERC Accelerator Award for Exceptional Opportunity
1999     Ontario Premier's Research Excellence Award
1997     US Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers

How do you handle ‘dirty data’?

Digital databases age rapidly, especially when they contain large amounts of data collected from several sources. Inconsistencies in formats, computer languages or the modeling assumptions used to create a database often result in ‘dirty data’ which is difficult to analyze or share, and expensive and time-consuming to clean. The antidote to these problems is ‘knowledge curation’ — a catch-all term for the activities which keep data useful and relevant, allowing archived data to be reused and the life of databases to be extended.

Professor Renée Miller, the Bell University Labs Chair in Information Systems at the University of Toronto, is a specialist in knowledge curation and data management. A decade ago, in collaboration with IBM’s Almaden Research Center, she led a team that created Clio, a schema-mapping tool which integrates highly structured and semantically rich data — like that gathered by engineers, scientists and doctors — into clean, well-organized databases. Today, Clio lies at the heart of IBM’s data integration products.

With her U of T research team, Professor Miller has focused on other aspects of data exchange, in particular the management of inconsistent data. Among her ongoing projects are ConQuer, which has produced scalable tools for consistent query answering from databases with ‘dirty data’ and other irregularities, and Hyperion, which addresses management support for dynamic peer-to-peer data sharing applications. Her latest project is the Business Intelligence Network (BIN), funded by an NSERC strategic Network Grant, which is developing a vision to improve the informational efficiency and trustworthiness of Canadian businesses and government organizations in the 21st century.

Established in 1998, the Bell University Labs Chair in Information Systems is part of the Bell University Laboratories initiative, a collaborative research program between the University of Toronto and Bell Canada. The chair provides leadership in research and education, as well as in the Bell University Laboratories Program, which identifies emerging areas of research and focuses on technical issues relevant to information technology and telecommunications industries in Ontario.

Story by Brendan de Caires

Sections

Bell University Labs Chair

Bell University Labs Chair

Curating knowledge

How do you handle ‘dirty data’?