About
Hi, I'm Sam! I'm a fourth-year PhD student in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), co-advised by Prof. Andy Pavlo, Prof. Todd Mowry, and Prof. Jignesh Patel.
I'm interested in compilers and database systems. My research explores how compiler optimization techniques can improve the performance of user-defined functions (UDFs).
Before starting grad school, I worked as a compiler engineer at Apple, where I helped ship Metal-accelerated rendering in Blender 3.1. Before that, I did my undergrad at The University of Sydney, Australia.
Research Impact
During my PhD, I implemented nested LATERAL joins in DuckDB with Mayank Baranwal and Arham Chopra, which shipped in DuckDB v0.9. I also discovered weaknesses in existing subquery unnesting algorithms, which motivated improved unnesting approaches in Umbra, DuckDB, and Microsoft Fabric.
Selected Publications
The Key to Effective UDF
Optimization: Before Inlining, First Perform Outlining
Runner-Up Best Paper Award 🏆
SIGMOD Research Highlight Award 🏆
Samuel Arch, Yuchen Liu, Jignesh M. Patel, Todd C. Mowry, Andrew Pavlo.
VLDB (2025).
Dear User-Defined Functions,
Inlining isn’t working out so great for us. Let’s try batching to make our relationship work.
Sincerely, SQL
Kai Franz, Samuel Arch, Denis Hirn, Torsten Grust, Todd C. Mowry, Andrew Pavlo.
CIDR (2024).
Other Publications
BPF-DB: A Kernel-Embedded Transactional Database Management System For eBPF
Applications
Matthew Butrovich, Samuel Arch, Wan Shen Lim, William Zhang, Jignesh Patel, Andrew
Pavlo.
SIGMOD (2025).
Hit the Gym: Accelerating Query
Execution to Efficiently Bootstrap Behavior Models
for Self-Driving Database Management Systems
Wan Shen Lim, Lin Ma, William Zhang, Matthew Butrovich, Samuel Arch, Andrew Pavlo.
VLDB (2024).
Experience
PhD Student, CMU (2022 - Present).
Software Engineering Intern, Columnar (2025 - Present).
High-Performance Query Processing Intern, Amazon Redshift (2024).
Compiler Engineer, Apple (2021).
Teaching
15-418: Parallel Computer Architecture and Programming (Spring '25).
15-745: Optimizing Compilers for Modern Architectures (Fall '23).
Awards
Graduate Fellowship in the School of Computer Science, CMU (2025).
The University Medal, The University of Sydney (2020).