Rick Cole

About
Rick Cole is a Research Scientist at Tableau Software where his focus is on the intersection of database query processing and visual analysis, or how to see and understand queries. Rick earned his PhD and MS degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he was a member of the Volcano project for research into efficient, extensible tools for query processing. His research explored the optimization of dynamic query evaluation plans for robust query performance. He has more than 35 publications and patents in query processing.
Rick has over 30 years of experience in databases, query processing, and query optimization. Before joining Tableau, Rick co-founded Bright Vine, a data integration startup for cooperative analytics in diverse big data ecosystems. Previously he was at ParAccel, where he led development of a new query optimization framework and query optimizers, as well as a new extensibility framework for ParAccel’s massively parallel, columnar data engine. Prior to ParAccel, he was a technical leader at IBM, Informix Software, and Red Brick Systems.
Focus
- Databases
- Query Processing
- Query Optimization
- Visual Analysis for Queries