Angelo Corsaro, Ph.D.
Eclipse Zenoh Project Lead
Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Research Profile
Dr. Angelo Corsaro is a world expert in Internet-scale distributed systems, with 25+ years of contributions spanning protocol design, real-time middleware, consensus and clock synchronization algorithms, and cloud-to-edge computing. His work has had both deep theoretical impact (100+ peer-reviewed publications, 1,478+ citations) and transformative industrial reach (10+ international standards co-authored, multiple protocols deployed in millions of mission-critical systems).
Research Interests
- Distributed algorithms: consensus, clock synchronization, causal ordering, CRDTs
- Cloud-to-edge-to-microcontroller computing continuum: protocol design, data-centric architectures
- Real-time and safety-critical systems: deterministic scheduling, memory safety, formal verification
- Distributed storage and large-scale data transfer: erasure coding, geo-distributed replication
- High-performance networking: zero-overhead abstractions, kernel bypass, RDMA-based middleware
- AI-native distributed infrastructure: federated learning, distributed inference
Experience
CEO / CTO & Co-Founder
Jan 2022 – 2026ZettaScale Technology · Paris
Co-founded company commercializing Eclipse Zenoh. Led the protocol from research prototype to production release (Zenoh 1.0, Oct 2024) within the Eclipse Foundation. Directed all R&D, technology strategy, and scientific publications. Selected to represent France at the Genius Minds 2024 initiative (Business France / Choose France) at the French Embassy in London.
Chief Technology Officer
2016 – 2022ADLINK Technologies Inc. · Paris
Led the Advanced Technology Office. Established edge computing as strategic corporate pillar years before mainstream adoption. Directed technology scouting, R&D strategy, and standardization activities. Recognized as Power 200: Most Influential Data Economy Leader (2019).
Chief Technology Officer
2009 – 2016PrismTech · Orsay
Transformed company from niche aerospace middleware vendor to IoT platform leader. Architected Vortex, the first commercial platform supporting unified cloud and fog computing. Drove ~75% revenue growth. Gartner Cool Vendor (2014).
Product Strategy Manager
2007 – 2009PrismTech · Orsay
Crafted and executed open-source strategy that drove massive user adoption and market expansion.
Software Technologies Scientist
Jan 2005 – Aug 2007SELEX-ES / Finmeccanica · Rome
Strategic and Technological Planning Directorate. Technical Manager of Finmeccanica Multi-Core Processor Research Group. Chaired scientific committee for Finmeccanica Software Laboratory. Co-advised Ph.D. students at La Sapienza, Rome.
Chief Architect, R&D
Dec 2003 – Dec 2004SELEX-ES / Finmeccanica · Rome
Designed enterprise middleware platform for mission-critical air traffic control, airborne, and naval combat management systems. Led international team of ~50 engineers.
Teaching
Lecturer
2016 – 2022ESIEE Paris — Member of the Conférence des Grandes Écoles Françaises
Ph.D. Co-Advisor
2003 – 2007Università La Sapienza (Rome) & Washington University in St. Louis
Education
Ph.D. in Computer Science
December 2004Washington University in St. Louis · Missouri, USA
Advisor: Prof. Douglas C. Schmidt. Dissertation: Design and performance of ahead-of-time compiled Real-Time Java middleware.
M.S. in Computer Science
January 2001Washington University in St. Louis · Missouri, USA
Laurea in Computer Engineering
July 1999Università degli Studi di Catania · Italy
Magna cum laude
Seminal Contributions
Eclipse Zenoh — Inventor & Project Lead
2015 – presentInvented Zenoh, a protocol unifying pub/sub, geo-distributed queries, and computation across the full cloud-to-microcontroller continuum. 5-byte wire overhead, sub-13µs latency, 50 Gbps throughput, runs on 32 KB RAM. Selected by the ROS 2 Technical Steering Committee as official DDS alternative. Adopted by General Motors (uProtocol), Bosch, Volvo, Foxconn, and Volocopter. Recommended by ITU for Intelligent Transport Systems.
OMG Data Distribution Service (DDS) Standard
2003 – 2015Founding Co-Chair of the OMG DDS Special Interest Group and major architect of the DDS family of standards (DDS, DDSI-RTPS, DDS Security, DDS RPC, DDS4CCM, ISO C++ DDS API). DDS is the foundational real-time pub/sub standard deployed in millions of mission-critical systems: air traffic control, naval combat management, autonomous vehicles, and medical devices.
Fog Computing: IEEE Standard 1934-2018
2009 – 2020Pioneered distributed edge computation (originally termed 'Fluid Computing') before the term 'fog computing' was coined. Collaborated with the Cisco team, contributed to the OpenFog Consortium reference architecture, and created Eclipse fog05 — the first fully decentralized fog computing infrastructure. The reference architecture was adopted as IEEE Standard 1934-2018.
Distributed Clock Synchronization
2005 – 2009Invented a fully distributed internal clock synchronization algorithm based on coupling theory that achieved the lowest error bounds published at the time for dynamic large-scale systems. Published in IEEE TPDS (2009) and deployed in Finmeccanica/SELEX-ES fault-tolerant systems.
Real-Time Java: jRate & Memory-Safety Algorithms
2001 – 2004Created jRate, the first open-source ahead-of-time compiled RTSJ implementation, developed under the DARPA PCES program. Boeing used jRate to prove feasibility of Real-Time Java for flight-critical UAV avionics. Also invented a constant-time O(1) algorithm for verifying pointer assignment safety in scoped memory regions — the first solution to this fundamental RTSJ problem.
Selected Publications
Full list: 100+ peer-reviewed publications · 1,478+ citations · Google Scholar
Corsaro, A., Baldoni, R., Querzoni, L., et al. (2009). "Coupling-based internal clock synchronization for large-scale dynamic distributed systems." IEEE TPDS, 21(5), 607–619.
Baldoni, G., Loudet, J., Cominardi, L. & Corsaro, A. (2024). "Data-centric service-based architecture for edge-native applications." IEEE Communications Magazine, 62(4), 32–38.
Corsaro, A. & Schmidt, D.C. (2003). "The design and performance of real-time Java middleware." IEEE Trans. on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 14(11), 1155–1167.
Yannuzzi, M., van Lingen, F., … Corsaro, A. & Olivé, A. (2017). "A new era for cities with fog computing." IEEE Internet Computing, 21(2), 54–67.
Corsaro, A., Cominardi, L., Hecart, O., et al. (2023). "Zenoh: Unifying communication, storage and computation from the cloud to the microcontroller." Euromicro DSD, 422–428.
Corsaro, A. & Cytron, R.K. (2003). "Efficient memory-reference checks for real-time Java." ACM SIGPLAN Notices, 38(7), 51–58. [LCTES '03 / co-located with PLDI]
Standards & Open Source
Standards Co-Authored
- OMG Data Distribution Service (DDS) v1.0–1.4 — Founding Co-Chair (2004–2015)
- OMG DDSI-RTPS (interoperability wire protocol) v2.x — Contributor
- OMG DDS Security, DDS RPC, DDS4CCM — Co-author
- ISO C++ DDS API (SimD) — Primary author; adopted as OMG standard
- OpenFog Consortium Reference Architecture — Key contributor; adopted as IEEE Standard 1934-2018
Open-Source Projects
Recognition & Awards
Technology CEO of the Year
Best Cloud-to-Device Continuum Platform Award
Genius Minds 2024 — Selected to represent France, French Embassy London
Top 10 V2X Startup to Watch
Spring50 Finalist — Paris-Saclay SPRING (ZettaScale)
Power 200: World's Most Influential Data Economy Leaders
Compass Intelligence Award: Best M2M & IoT Company
Top 50 Most Influential Executives in Edge Computing
Gartner Cool Vendor
IEEE Senior Member | ACM Member | Eclipse Foundation Board of Directors