Research in database systems: Challenges, principles, prototypes, and results

Summary form only given: A great deal of database research is largely systems-driven, with less of a focus on well thought out, clean foundations. My approach has been to lay solid theoretical foundations first, then develop a prototype system realizing those foundations. This talk focuses specifically on the challenges of developing new data models and query languages that are simultaneously well-defined, understandable, expressive, and can be implemented efficiently.