Patrick Eugene O'Neil is an American computer scientist, an expert on database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

s, and a professor of computer science at the University of Massachusetts Boston

University of Massachusetts Boston

The University of Massachusetts Boston, also known as UMass Boston, is an urban public research university and the second largest campus in the five-campus University of Massachusetts system. The university is located on on Harbor Point in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, United States...

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O'Neil did his undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

, receiving a B.S. in mathematics in 1963. After earning a masters' degree at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, he moved to Rockefeller University

Rockefeller University

The Rockefeller University is a private university offering postgraduate and postdoctoral education. It has a strong concentration in the biological sciences. It is also known for producing numerous Nobel laureates...

, where he earned a Ph.D. in combinatorial mathematics in 1969 under the supervision of Gian-Carlo Rota

Gian-Carlo Rota

Gian-Carlo Rota was an Italian-born American mathematician and philosopher.-Life:Rota was born in Vigevano, Italy...

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He was an assistant professor at MIT from 1970 to 1972, but then left academia for industry, returning in 1988 as a member of the UMass/Boston faculty. He became a full professor in 1996.

O'Neil has written highly cited papers on replication

Replication (computer science)

Replication is the process of sharing information so as to ensure consistency between redundant resources, such as software or hardware components, to improve reliability, fault-tolerance, or accessibility. It could be data replication if the same data is stored on multiple storage devices, or...

 in distributed databases, page replacement strategies for databases, SQL

SQL

SQL is a programming language designed for managing data in relational database management systems ....

 isolation, and database indexing

Index (database)

A database index is a data structure that improves the speed of data retrieval operations on a database table at the cost of slower writes and increased storage space...

strategies. With Elizabeth J. O'Neil, he is the author of the database textbook Database Principles, Programming, and Performance (Morgan Kauffman, 2nd ed., 2000).