Pradeeban Kathiravelu is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, AK, USA. He has an EU Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Distributed Computing (EMJD-DC) from INESC-ID Lisboa / Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal and Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. His Ph.D. thesis was on Software-Defined Systems for network-aware service composition and workflow placement. He received his MSc degree, Erasmus Mundus European Master in Distributed Computing (EMDC), from Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal, and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. He also holds a Bachelor of the Science of Engineering (Hons) degree, majoring in Computer Science & Engineering, with a first-class from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. His research interests include Distributed Systems, Network Softwarization, Software-Defined Systems, Cloud-Assisted Networks, Big data Integration, Internet Measurements, and Service-Oriented Architecture. He is highly interested in free and open-source software development, and is an active participant in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program since 2009, as a student, a mentor, and an organization administrator.