--- title: "Welcoming Alena Rybakina as a New Apache Cloudberry Committer" description: "Becoming a committer demonstrates a strong commitment to the community." source: https://cloudberry.apache.org/blog/welcoming-alena-rybakina-as-a-new-apache-cloudberry-committer --- # Welcoming Alena Rybakina as a New Apache Cloudberry Committer We're thrilled to announce that Alena Rybakina (GitHub ID: @Alena0704) has joined Apache Cloudberry as our newest committer! 🎉 The Podling Project Management Committee (PPMC) for Apache Cloudberry has invited Alena Rybakina to become a committer, and we are pleased to announce that the invitation has been accepted. Alena joined the Cloudberry community in March 2026 and has made steady, high-quality contributions ever since, with more than 20 commits merged into the `main` branch and a number of bug fixes backported to `REL_2_STABLE`. Alena is also an active PostgreSQL contributor and is listed among the [significant contributors](https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/) to PostgreSQL, bringing deep database internals expertise to our community. Some highlights of Alena's contributions include: - Fixing a range of correctness issues in the ORCA optimizer and the Postgres planner. - Improving sort memory accounting and statistics estimation, and stabilizing flaky tests. - Adding new features such as the `TRY_CONVERT` extension and the `pg_manage_resource_groups` role. - Leading the ongoing work on detailed VACUUM statistics — reviews and feedback are very welcome! Beyond code, Alena is an active and careful reviewer, and has caught several critical bugs while reviewing other contributors' pull requests. Becoming a committer recognizes both Alena's past contributions and the community's trust in Alena's continued involvement. Committers play an important role in shaping the project by reviewing and merging contributions, participating in design decisions, and helping guide the project's growth. Please join us in congratulating **Alena Rybakina** on this well-deserved recognition. We look forward to Alena's continued contributions and collaboration within the Apache Cloudberry community! You can find the official announcement on the [Apache Cloudberry mailing list](https://lists.apache.org/thread/w638b9blt6zy1t3rtpfbflg48o40pcw4).