Michael Stonebraker
Born 1943 · Age 82
American computer scientist and serial database entrepreneur; pioneer of relational DBMS (Ingres, Postgres) and founder/technical leader of numerous database companies; 2014 ACM Turing Award laureate.
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Life & Career Timeline
Grew up in Milton, New Hampshire (early life)
Raised in Milton, New Hampshire (family/home environment that shaped early life).
Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts
Michael Ralph Stonebraker was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Completed B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering, Princeton University
Earned Bachelor of Science in Engineering (electrical engineering) from Princeton University.
Completed M.S., University of Michigan
Completed Master's degree (M.S.) at the University of Michigan (Computer/Information/Control Engineering / Electrical Engineering depending on source).
Ph.D. awarded, University of Michigan
Completed Ph.D. (The Reduction of Large Scale Markov Models for Random Chains) at the University of Michigan; doctoral advisor Arch Waugh Naylor.
Joined UC Berkeley faculty as assistant professor
Became assistant professor (EECS / Computer Science) at the University of California, Berkeley; began the Berkeley phase of his career.
Began Ingres research with Eugene Wong
Initiated research on relational database systems after reading Edgar F. Codd, launching the Ingres project (Interactive Graphics and Retrieval System).
Ingres became a usable relational database system (mid-1970s)
Using rotating teams of student programmers, Stonebraker's team produced a usable Ingres system; influential in RDBMS design.
Published 'The design and implementation of INGRES'
Key paper documenting Ingres design and implementation; Ingres matured into a usable relational DBMS.
Helped found Relational Technology, Inc. (Ingres commercial entity)
Along with colleagues (including Larry Rowe and Eugene Wong) helped found a commercial company to commercialize Ingres (later known as Ingres Corporation). Year approximated from early-1980s commercialization.
Started the Postgres project (POST inGRES)
Launched the POSTGRES project to extend relational DBMS with complex datatypes and extensibility; later the basis for PostgreSQL and commercial spinouts.
Published 'The design of POSTGRES'
Published design paper for POSTGRES (post-Ingres), describing an object-relational DBMS supporting complex types and extensibility.
ACM Software System Award (Ingres developers)
Received ACM Software System Award (shared with Gerald Held and Eugene Wong) for the development of Ingres/System work.
Received ACM SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations Award (inaugural)
Awarded the SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations Award for contributions to database systems (source material indicates he was the first recipient).
Named ACM Fellow
Inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Informix acquired Illustra; Stonebraker became Informix CTO
Informix purchased Illustra (the company Stonebraker helped create to commercialize Postgres). Stonebraker became Chief Technical Officer of Informix after the acquisition.
Published 'Mariposa: A wide-area distributed database system'
Published Mariposa paper describing a federated DB built on economic/resource-trading model (Mariposa project).
Elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering
Recognized for development and commercialization of relational and object-relational database systems.
Named by Forbes among '8 innovators driving the Silicon Valley wealth explosion'
Recognized by Forbes as one of the innovators contributing to Silicon Valley's growth (Forbes 80th edition mention).
Trained >30 Ph.D. students (career milestone)
Over his academic career trained more than 30 Ph.D. students who became notable in academia and industry (e.g., Joe Hellerstein, Andy Pavlo, Margo Seltzer). Year listed as career milestone (cumulative; placed at 2000 when Berkeley tenure ended).
Ended 29-year tenure at UC Berkeley
Concluded ~29 years of teaching and research at UC Berkeley (1971–2000); transitioned to MIT involvement.
Left Informix (ended CTO role)
Served as Informix CTO until September 2000; departed Informix as the company and product lines evolved.
Became adjunct professor at MIT CSAIL
Joined MIT as an adjunct professor (Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) and started a new research/commercialization phase.
Cohera IP purchased by PeopleSoft
Cohera (commercialization of Mariposa) had its intellectual property purchased by PeopleSoft; PeopleSoft later acquired by Oracle.
PeopleSoft acquired Cohera IP; PeopleSoft later acquired by Oracle
Cohera's IP used by PeopleSoft for Enterprise Catalog Management; PeopleSoft itself was acquired by Oracle in 2004 (chain of acquisitions).
Published 'Aurora: A new model and architecture for data stream management'
Aurora project paper introducing push-based stream data management and stream operators.
Co-founded StreamBase Systems to commercialize Aurora
Co-founded StreamBase Systems (2003) to commercialize research from the Aurora stream-processing project.
Received IEEE John von Neumann Medal
Awarded the IEEE John von Neumann Medal for contributions to computing (listed among major awards).
Co-founded Vertica to commercialize C-Store
Founded Vertica Systems to commercialize the C-Store columnar analytics technology.
Started the C-Store project (column-store research)
Launched C-Store (a parallel, column-oriented DBMS) for analytic/data-warehousing workloads.
Started Morpheus project (data integration)
Launched Morpheus project to mediate between web data sources using 'transforms' to enable integration and search over services.
Started H-Store project (main-memory OLTP research)
Launched H-Store, a distributed main-memory OLTP system targeting very high throughput transactional workloads.
Started SciDB (array DBMS research)
Co-started SciDB, an open-source DBMS designed for scientific and analytic workloads (array-oriented).
Paradigm4 wins early clients (Novartis, Foundation Medicine, NIH listed)
Paradigm4 (SciDB commercialization) lists clients including Novartis, Foundation Medicine, and NIH — milestone showing commercial traction.
Co-founded Goby (local search) and VoltDB (from H-Store)
Co-founded Goby (local-discovery/search company, based on Morpheus ideas) and VoltDB (commercial startup based on H-Store).
Paradigm4 (SciDB commercialization) founded with Marilyn Matz
Co-founded Paradigm4 to develop SciDB commercially; company served clients in life sciences and finance.
Published 'SQL databases v. NoSQL databases'
Published critique of the NoSQL movement in Communications of the ACM (2010), arguing for relational strengths.
Published 'Stonebraker on NoSQL and enterprises'
Follow-up piece in Communications of the ACM (2011) further discussing NoSQL trade-offs for enterprise use.
Vertica acquired by Hewlett-Packard (HP)
Vertica (C-Store commercialization) was acquired by HP (approximate year 2011 based on public reporting).
StreamBase acquired (TIBCO reported acquires StreamBase)
StreamBase (Aurora commercialization) was acquired by TIBCO (public reports indicate acquisition around 2013).
Co-founded Tamr (approximate)
Stonebraker is listed as a founder of Tamr (enterprise data unification company). Public sources place Tamr's founding in the early 2010s; year given as approximate.
Awarded ACM A.M. Turing Award (2014)
Received the ACM A.M. Turing Award (2014) for fundamental contributions to database systems; prize carries a $1,000,000 award (announced March 2015).
Editor of Readings in Database Systems (5th ed.)
Co-edited the 5th edition of Readings in Database Systems (with Joseph Hellerstein); important textbook/reading collection for DB researchers and practitioners.
Listed as founder of Hopara (company founding listed)
Stonebraker is cited as a founder of Hopara among other ventures (company details and founding year not specified in source; year here is approximate/placeholder).
Turing Award publicly announced by ACM/MIT News
ACM/MIT News reported Stonebraker as the recipient of the 2014 Turing Award on March 25, 2015 (prize awarded for 2014 work).
Won 2015 Commonwealth Award (MassTLC)
Selected by council members of MassTLC as the recipient of the 2015 Commonwealth Award.
Named MIT Technology Review Top 7 Innovators Over 70
Recognized by MIT Technology Review as a leading innovator among those aged over 70 (TR7, 2016).
Received Computers & Communications (C&C) Prize
Awarded the Computers & Communications (C&C) Prize in 2020 (listed on Berkeley page).
Professor emeritus at UC Berkeley; adjunct professor at MIT CSAIL
Holds emeritus status at UC Berkeley and remains an adjunct professor at MIT CSAIL; continues research, advising, and company involvement.
Key Achievement Ages
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