Hi, I'm Donna.
I'm a Rackham Scholar and a Graduate student in the Computer Science & Engineering Division at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I'm fortunate to be advised by Prof. Lin Ma, with whom I've worked ever since my undergraduate years — which is why I chose to continue my doctoral studies under his guidance.
My research lies at the intersection of database management systems and machine learning. Currently, I focus on optimizing index structures for large language models, including hierarchical indexing for faster, more scalable retrieval.
I worked across industry, most recently at Google on modeling infrastructure, and earlier at Citadel, Tesla, NVIDIA, and Ford. I'm originally from the Bay Area, California.
Publications
Indexing Long Documents for LLM-Based Analysis
Donna Pham
VLDB 2026 Ph.D. WorkshopBest Paper arXivPoster
Donna Pham
VLDB 2026 Ph.D. WorkshopBest Paper arXivPoster
LakeHelm: Zero-Shot Lakehouse Advisor for Joint Engine-Format Selection and Configuration
Zhongwei Xu, Siyuan Dong, Haotian Gong, Donna Pham, Lin Ma
Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), Vol. 19, No. 8, 2026 DOIPDF
Zhongwei Xu, Siyuan Dong, Haotian Gong, Donna Pham, Lin Ma
Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment (PVLDB), Vol. 19, No. 8, 2026 DOIPDF
Experience
Industry
Google — Software Engineer, Modeling Infra
2024 – 2026
Citadel — Data Processing SWE Intern
May – Aug 2023
Cadence — Physical Design Intern
May – Aug 2023
Tesla — Vision Software Engineer
Aug 2022 – May 2023
Zoom — Software Engineer Intern
May – Aug 2022
NVIDIA — Deep Learning SW Dev Intern
May – Aug 2022
Ford — Autonomy Simulation Intern
Jan – July 2022
Research
University of Michigan — Database Researcher, Lin Ma Lab
Sept 2023 – Present