Olaf M. Maennel

"Knowledge is power — no longer". The Internet has revolutionized the way in which we communicate, do business, or learn. Knowledge is now easier to access than ever, and what fascinates my research is the technology that enables this worldwide paradigm change.

Currently, I am a lecturer at Loughborough University in UK. This is comparable to "assistant professor" in the US. My interests are in computer networks, focusing on:

• network security
• routing (BGP, IS-IS)
• measurements (active & passive)
• IPv6 & IPv4 address sharing technologies
• future Internet technology & network virtualization
• topology modelling/inference & traffic engineering
• abstractions of networks for configuration management systems

I obtained my Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat.) in computer science from the Technical University of Munich, Germany, in the group of Anja Feldmann in 2005 and my Diploma (MSc) from the Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.

Research

High-quality research should build on solid theoretical foundations, but must also deliver real-world impact. For example, I am working with Tim Griffin on routing algebras that ensure robustness and safety of Internet routing. However, without close collaborations with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and router vendors, such research will not find its way into the real network.

This dialog with industry is very important to my research, as it ensures research will not lose it's foundations. During my PhD I have worked with Anja Feldmann and Rüdiger Volk from Deutsche Telekom on a network-wide configuration management system, which is in production use in DT's network since 2004. The system specifies eBGP routing policies on an abstract graph-level, but then compiles it all the way down to the vendor-dependant code and auto-configures their routers.

At the University of Adelaide in South Australia I did my post-doc in the School of Mathematical Science working with Matthew Roughan. I am still continuing collaborations with my friends "down under". At the moment we are extending our configuration management system to be beneficial to the network security area as well, for example to configure and auto-deploy Cyber Defense Exercises.

It is this balance between theory and "hands-on" that enables innovation and changes technology.

Teaching

What drives my research also applies to my teaching. Personally, I believe that traditional universities are at risk of sleepwalking into a crisis, as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) change the higher-education environments drastically (my view on teaching in the information age). We need to rethink our methods/values and implement innovative teaching into our programs. I have also recently been involved in the restructuring of our postgraduate Internet Computing and Network Security (ICNS) program.

Since April 2012 I am a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (HEA) having completed the HEA accredited "New Lecturers' Course", which is a comprehensive course for new academic faculty in UK.

• COC190 Advanced Networking
  (2012/13, Sem 2)
• COF181 Introduction to Programming II
  (2012/13, Sem 2)
• COP455 Network Systems
  (2009/10, Sem 1), (2010/11, Sem 2), (2011/12, Sem 2), (2012/13, Sem 1)
• COP502 Building Secure Networks
  (2012/13, Sem 1)
• COP502 Networks Lab
  (2009/10, Sem 2), (2010/11, Sem 2), (2011/12, Sem 2)
• COP532 Internet Architectures
  (2010/11, Sem 1), (2011/12, Sem 1)
  
• COP532 Internet Protocols
  (2012/13, Sem 1)
  

Current PhD Students

• Ali Alkhamis (since April 2011)
• Ahmed Abubakar (since July 2011)
• Mehdi Mousavi (since January 2013)

• Ashley Flavel (co-supervised with Matt Roughan and Nigel Bean; Ph.D. successfully completed in 2009. Ashley works now at Microsoft)
• Debbie Perouli (external supervisor at Purdue University, internal supervisor Sonia Fahmy, completed 18 Feb 2013)

Professional Activities

Co-Chair/TPC-CoChair:

• NPsec, 2013 (co-chair jointly with Jun Li)
• CoNext Student Workshop, 2010 (co-chair jointly with Brighten Godfrey and Chuanxiong Guo)

Funding proposal reviewer:
• European Research Council
• French National Research Agency
• Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)

Journal reviewer:
• IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN) - Since 2008
• Computer Networks Journal (COMNET) - Since 2008
  
• IEEE Network Magazine - Since 2012
• Advances in Computing - Scientific & Academic Publishing (Editor)
• International Journal on Advances in Internet Technology (Editorial Board Member, since 2012)
• COMPEL: The International Journal for Computation and Mathematics in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Since 2012)

2013:
• CoNext Student Workshop, December 2013, Santa Barbara, California
  
• 7th IEEE Workshop on Network Measurements, October 2013, Sydney, Australia
• ACM SIGCOMM TPC, August 2013, Hong Kong, China
  
• AFIN 2013, Barcelona, August, 2013
• ICCGI 2013, Nice, July 21-26, 2013
• ACCESS 2013, Nice, July 21-26, 2013
• IADIS Theory and Practice in Modern Computing, Prague, Czech Republic, July 22-24, 2013
• UK Performance Engineering Workshop (UKPEW), July 4 - 5, 2013
• PESARO 2013, Venice, Italy, April 22 - 26, 2013
• Traffic Monitoring and Analysis Workshop (TMA 2013), 19 April 2013, Turin, Italy
• Global Internet Symposium (GI), April 19, 2013, Turin, Italy
• Passive and Active Measurement Conference (PAM), 18-20 March 2013, Hong Kong, China
  
  
2012:
• Second Workshop on Rigorous Protocol Engineering (WRiPE) TPC, Austin, TX, USA, Oct, 2012
• SIGCOMM 2012 Posters/Demos TPC, Helsinki, August 2012
• AFIN 2012, Rome, August, 2012
• ACCESS 2012, Venice, June 24-29, 2012
• IADIS Theory and Practice in Modern Computing, Lisbon, Portugal, July 17-19, 2012
• USENIX HOT-ICE, San Jose, April 2012
• Passive & Active Measurement Conference (PAM), Vienna, March 2012
• CCNC MCEN Workshop, Las Vegas, January 2012
  
  
2011:
• Internet Measurement Conference (IMC), Berlin, Nov 2011
• The Third International Conference on Advances in Future Internet - AFIN, Nice, August 2011
• IADIS International Conference Telecommunications, Networks and Systems, Rome, July 2011
• Third COST TMA International Workshop on Traffic Monitoring and Analysis, Vienna, April 2011
  
  
2010:
• Conference on emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies (CoNEXT), Philadelphia, Nov 2010
• Internet Measurement Conference (IMC), Melbourne, Nov 2010
  
  

others:
• IEEE Infocom, 2012 (external reviewer)
• Passive and Active Measurement Conference (PAM), 2010 (external reviewer)
• Assessor for the Lillian Elizabeth Bowmaker Bursary, 2010-2013
• Passive and Active Measurement Conference (PAM), 2008 (external)
• Australasian Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference, 2007
• Interdomain Routing Workshop (IDRWS), 2004

• WODNAFO 10, Adelaide, Australia 2010
• Passive and Active Measurement Conference (PAM), 2006
• Interdomain Routing Workshop (IDRWS), 2004

Personal

I am married to Kaie Maennel and we have a son, Oliver Matthias. If my job permits, I like reading books and flying small airplanes. I hold a PPL(A) for Australia, Europe (UK JAR-FCL).