Principal Scientist Chris Walton

Chris Walton is the Principal Scientist and Owner of FrontRunner Computer Performance Consulting. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and has over ten years experience providing performance support to developers of databases, protocol stacks, UNIX kernels, network processors and packet voice technology. He has solved performance problems at every stage of the product lifecycle, in environments ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to small startups.

Chris is an editor for the Open Directory Project's Computer Performance and Capacity category. He is a member of ACM, SIGMETRICS , the Computer Measurement Group, the IEEE Computer Society, and the IEEE Consultants' Network of Central Texas .

In 2002, Chris became a Senior Member of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers. Fewer than 10% of IEEE members are recognized as Senior Members.

• Summary Resume [PDF](Skills and Accomplishments).
• Full Resume[PDF]
• Recent Presentations

Prior to starting FrontRunner, Chris was Principal Performance Scientist at Sariga Networks, a packet voice startup, where he used both analytic and simulation techniques to evaluate new jitter control algorithms and scheduling architectures. In 2000 and 2001, as a member of the technical staff at Agere Systems, he provided daily guidance on performance issues to the design teams for the PayLoad Plus™ network processor chipset.

From 1994 to 1999, Chris held a variety of positions at Tandem Computer's Austin site before and after Tandem's merger with Compaq Computer. He was responsible for performance analysis and capacity planning for the first generation infrastructure of Motorola's iDEN™ cell phone and two-way radio technology. Previous to joining Tandem, he was technical lead for OS/2 transport performance at IBM's Austin site.

Chris received his Ph.D. in Computer Sciences from the University of Texas in 1992. His dissertation research focused on how unbalanced data affected parallel join performance. His major contributions to the field were a new taxonomy and performance model of data skew in parallel joins. Chris also holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Chris Walton grew up in the New England region of the United States and attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. He majored in Physics and ran varsity cross country and track. In his senior year he was recognized as the outstanding male student-athlete in his class. After working at the United Technologies Research Center, he entered graduate school, first at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and then at The University of Texas at Austin.

Outside of work, Chris enjoys running, reading, cultural activities, hiking, home improvement projects and volunteer work.

Chris can be reached at cbwalton@frontrunnercpc.com

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