September 16, 2008

Bio:
Dr. Brewer focuses on all aspects of Internet-based systems, including technology, strategy and government. He has led projects on scalable servers, search engines, network infrastructure, sensor networks and security. His current focus is high technology for developing regions.

In 2000, working with President Clinton, Dr. Brewer helped to create USA.gov, the official portal of the United States Federal government. Among other recent accolades, he was named a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum and elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

October 28, 2008

Bio:
Koller’s research focuses on developing and using machine learning and probabilistic methods to model and analyze complex domains, such as biological systems or the physical world. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the ONR Young Investigator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award, the Cox Medal for Fostering Excellence in Undergraduate Research, the MacArthur Fellowship and the ACM/Infosys Award.

November 4, 2008

Bio:
Dr. Raghavan is head of the advanced research organization for Yahoo! Incorporated. His research interests include text and web mining, and algorithm design.

He is a Consulting Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the ACM. Raghavan received his PhD from Berkeley and is a Fellow of the ACM and of the IEEE. Prior to joining Yahoo, he was Chief Technology Officer at Verity; before that he held a number of technical and managerial positions at IBM Research.

November 18, 2008

Bio:
Friedman pioneered Value Sensitive Design (VSD), an approach to account for human values in the design of information systems. First developed in human-computer interaction, VSD has since been used in information management, humanrobotic interaction and urban planning. Friedman is currently working on multi-lifespan information system design and other new ideas for future information systems.

December 2, 2008

Bio:
Kay is one of the earliest pioneers of object-oriented programming, personal computing and graphical user interfaces. At Viewpoints Research Institute, he and his colleagues continue to explore advanced systems and programming design; they are also deeply involved in activities such as the “One Laptop Per Child” initiative.

Kay’s numerous contributions been recognized by prestigious awards such as the Charles Stark Draper Prize of the National Academy of Engineering, the Turing Award of the Association for Computing Machinery, and the Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation.

December 9, 2008

Bio:
Jurafsky works at the nexus of language and computation, focusing on statistical models of human and machine language processing. Recent topics include the induction and use of computational models of meaning, the automatic recognition and synthesis of speech, and the comprehension and production of dialogue. He is the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and an NSF CAREER award. His most recent book is the second edition of his widely-used textbook with Jim Martin, Speech and Language Processing.

January 27, 2009

Bio:
Nayar co-directs the Columbia Vision and Graphics Center, and heads the Columbia Computer Vision Laboratory (CAVE), which is dedicated to the development of advanced computer vision systems. His research is focused on three areas: the creation of novel cameras, the design of physics-based models for vision, and the development of algorithms for scene understanding. His work is motivated by applications in the fields of digital imaging, computer graphics and robotics.

He has received awards such as the David Marr Prize and the National Young Investigator Award, and he was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering.