I am a PhD student in the Database Group at the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) in Potsdam, under the supervision of Tilmann Rabl.

My research focuses on ML systems, particularly ML model management and search. My work has been published in SIGMOD and EDBT. In addition to my research, I contribute to our lecture on big data systems, lead seminars on ML systems, and supervise master's theses.

Before starting my PhD, I earned a master's degree in IT-Systems Engineering from HPI and a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Hamburg. As part of my studies, I completed a six-month internship at SAP Labs France in Sophia Antipolis and spent a semester at ETH Zurich.

• Poodle: Seamlessly Scaling Down Large Language Models with Just-in-Time Model Replacement @ arXiv
  Nils Strassenburg, Boris Glavic, Tilmann Rabl
  > Paper > Poster > Slides
• Alsatian: Optimizing Model Search for Deep Transfer Learning @ SIGMOD 2025
  Nils Strassenburg, Boris Glavic, Tilmann Rabl
  > Paper (single-column)  > Paper (extended, double-column)  > Code > Poster > Video
• TCO2: Analyzing the Carbon Footprint of Database Server Replacements @ VLDB 2025
  Marc Baeuerle, Thomas Bodner, Martin Boissier, Tilmann Rabl, Ricardo Salazar Diaz, Florian Schmeller, Nils Strassenburg, Ilin Tolovski, Marcel Weisgut, Wang Yue
  > Paper  > Code  > Demo
• PQ Bench: Benchmarking Pruning and Quantization Techniques @ DEEM 2025
  Jonas Schulze, Nils Strassenburg, Tilmann Rabl
  > Paper
• A Case for Ecological Efficiency in Database Server Lifecycles @CIDR 2025
  Thomas Bodner, Martin Boissier, Tilmann Rabl, Ricardo Salazar Diaz, Florian Schmeller, Nils Strassenburg, Ilin Tolovski, Marcel Weisgut, Wang Yue
  > Paper
• Efficient Multi-Model Management @ EDBT 2023 
  Nils Strassenburg, Dominic Kupfer, Julia Kowal, Tilmann Rabl
  > Paper  > Code
• Efficiently Managing Deep Learning Models in a Distributed Environment (awarded as best paper) @ EDBT 2022
  Nils Strassenburg, Ilin Tolovski, Tilmann Rabl
  > Paper  > Code  > Poster

• DL Model Management
• DL Model Search
• ML Systems

Master Thesis

Please feel free to send me an email if you have any questions or are interested in writing your master thesis with me. I have some ideas for potential thesis topics, but am also happy to discuss ideas you have. 

For general information on writing your thesis with us, check out our website on general theses information.

Projects/Seminars

• Data Management in ML Systems (Master, Winter 2021/22)
• ML Systems (Master, Winter 2023/24)
• Big Data Lab (Master, Winter 2023/24)
• Sustainability in Data Management (Master, Summer 2025)

Lectures

• Big Data Systems (Master, Winter 2022/23)
• Big Data Systems (Master, Winter 2023/24)
• Big Data Systems (Master, Winter 2024/25)
• Big Data Systems (Master, Winter 2025/26)