Hello! I’m a second-year Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley, advised by Prof. Matei Zaharia and affiliated with the Sky Computing Lab. My research focuses on sustainability as a first-order optimization objective alongside efficiency in large-scale machine learning and data center systems. Broadly, I’m interested in:

1. Machine learning systems
2. Data center computing
3. Distributed systems

Before coming to Berkeley, I completed my Master’s degree at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where I was very fortunate to work with Prof. Akshitha Sriraman. My Master’s research centered on developing sustainable resource management techniques for microservices in hyperscale data centers.

I graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering. While there, I was advised by Prof. Steve Mann on wearables for prosopagnosia. In between my academic pursuits, I spent ~3 years as a software engineer at IBM working on Db2 database core engine development, specifically on availability features such as backup, restore, and recovery.

Please feel free reach out for research, collaborations, or a casual chat, especially if you are a junior, disadvantaged, or underrepresented student. The best way to reach me is via email: [melissapan]@berkeley.edu

CV: PDF here, up to Dec 2024.

Selected Research Projects

Why Do Multi-Agent LLM Systems Fail?

Mert Cemri*, Melissa Pan*, Shuyi Yang*, Lakshya A. Agrawal, Bhavya Chopra, Rishabh Tiwari, Kurt Keutzer, Aditya Parameswaran, Dan Klein, Kannan Ramchandran, Matei Zaharia, Joseph E. Gonzalez, Ion Stoica

NeurIPS 2025

Published Spotlight

The first empirical, principled study of multi-agent LLM failures. We introduce MAD (1,242 annotated traces across 7 frameworks) and MAST, a taxonomy for common failure patterns that currently exist in multi-agent LLM systems.

PDF Code Slides

Semantic Operators and Their Optimization: Enabling LLM-Based Data Processing with Accuracy Guarantees in LOTUS

Liana Patel, Siddharth Jha, Melissa Pan, Harshit Gupta, Parth Asawa, Carlos Guestrin, Matei Zaharia

VLDB 2025

Published

PDF Code

Teaching & Mentorship & Services

I’m passionate about education and supporting the next generation of (computer) scientists, especially students from underrepresented backgrounds.

Teaching:

• EY: Introduction to Programing Workshop (Spring 2025) - Designed and lead a 1-day workshop for girls in the area from grade 5 - 9.
• Invited by Dr. Brad Bass as Guest lectures on sustainable computing and ML systems for University of Toronto’s course ENV360.
• 18-847: Data Center Computing (Spring 2024) - Graduate Teaching Assistant at Carnegie Mellon University
• 18-847: Data Center Computing (Fall 2023) - Graduate Teaching Assistant at Carnegie Mellon University
• STEM4Girls Program - Volunteer mentor for middle school girls interested in STEM

Mentorship:

• Berkeley EAAA (2025): PhD application mentoring for underrepresented students
• Berkeley EAAA (2024): PhD application mentoring for underrepresented students
• Regular undergraduate research coffee chats (2024)
• CMU ECE Graduate Mentorship Committee Chair (2024)

Academic Services:

• OSDI and ATC 2025 Artifact Evaluation Committee

Other Services:

• Berkeley Faculty Hiring Student Committee Chair, EECS Graduate Student Assembly, EECS Grads Matter Committee Member (2025)
• Berkeley Programing System Seminar (PS2) Organizer, Summer Edition on Research Agents (2025)
• Berkeley Graduate Woman of Engineering, Career and Professional Develoment Committee (2024, 2025)
• Berkeley CSGE Seminar Chair (2024, 2025)
• Berkeley Faculty Hiring Student Committee Member (2024)

Hobbies/interests

• 🧗‍♀️ I love bouldering: I am a solid V2 climber, my current goal is to climb a V5 route!
• ☕️ My favourite drinks are Iced Americano and Iced Matcha 🍵. I also like making latte art, pattern progress: blob (100%), solid heart (85%), rosetta (20%), ??? (100%).
• 🐶 I love my dog, her name is Paofu. She holds all six level of certifications on behavours and tricks 🎓
• I use emoji exccessively.

This website is last updated: Sep 2025