About Me
I am a first-year CS PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania, advised by Prof. Boon Thau Loo. I am a member of the NetDB and DSLresearch groups. My current research focuses on load balancing in DAG-based Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) protocols across multiple system levels.
Previously, I collaborated on research exploring staged multiplexing for LLM inference, contributing to a co-authored publication at SoCC'25. My path to computer science systems research has been non-traditional, beginning with a background in Civil Engineering—a journey I've documented in this blog post.
Current Research
DAG-based BFT load balancing
Fall 2025 – Present Investigating load balancing strategies within Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) based Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) protocols. This work focuses on optimizing resource allocation across three architectural tiers—validators, workers, and executors—to alleviate bottlenecks and improve overall system throughput.
Publications
Tao Luo, Kelvin Ng, Zhen Ping Khor, Sidharth Sankhe, Boon Thau Loo, Vincent Liu."Multiplexed Heterogeneous LLM Serving via Stage-Aligned Parallelism." SoCC, 2025.
[PDF][DOI]Zhen Ping Khor, Min Lee Lee, Soon Yee Wong, Abdullahi Ali Mohamed, Teck Leong Lau."Parametric study of embankment stabilization by pile reinforcement." IOP, 2023.
[DOI]Blog
Thoughts on research, career pivots, and life as a PhD student.
Read my posts →