This podcast features interviews with Computer Science researchers. Hosted by Dr. Jack Waudby researchers are interviewed, highlighting the problem(s) they tackled, solutions they developed, and how their findings can be applied in practice. This podcast is for industry practitioners, researchers, and students, aims to further narrow the gap between research and practice, and to generally make awesome Computer Science research more accessible. We have 2 types of episode: (i) Cutting Edge (red/blue logo) where we talk to researchers about their latest work, and (ii) High Impact (gold/silver logo) where we talk to researchers about their influential work.
You can support the show through Buy Me a Coffee. A donation of $3 will help us keep making you awesome Computer Science research podcasts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This podcast features interviews with Computer Science researchers. Hosted by Dr. Jack Waudby researchers are interviewed, highlighting the problem(s) they tackled, solutions they developed, and how their findings can be applied in practice. This podcast is for industry practitioners, researchers, and students, aims to further narrow the gap between research and practice, and to generally make awesome Computer Science research more accessible. We have 2 types of episode: (i) Cutting Edge (red/blue logo) where we talk to researchers about their latest work, and (ii) High Impact (gold/silver logo) where we talk to researchers about their influential work.
You can support the show through Buy Me a Coffee. A donation of $3 will help us keep making you awesome Computer Science research podcasts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the DuckDB in Research series, Harry Gavriilidis (PhD student at TU Berlin) joins us to discuss Sheet Reader — a high-performance spreadsheet parser that dramatically outpaces traditional tools in both speed and memory efficiency. By taking advantage of the standardized structure of spreadsheet files and bypassing generic XML parsers, Sheet Reader delivers fast and lightweight parsing, even on large files. Now available as a DuckDB extension, it enables users to query spreadsheets directly with SQL and integrate them seamlessly into broader analytical workflows.
Harry shares insights into the development process, performance benchmarks, and the surprisingly complex world of spreadsheet parsing. He also discusses community feedback, feature requests (like detecting multiple tables or parsing colored rows), and future plans — including tighter integration with DuckDB and support for Arrow. The conversation wraps up with a look at Harry’s broader research on composable database systems and data interoperability, highlighting how tools like DuckDB are reshaping modern data analysis.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.