Stephen Emmott
Director and Founder, European Science Initiative
Microsoft Research Cambridge
Microsoft Corp.

Stephen Emmott is director and founder of Microsoft Corp’s European Science Initiative, which is focused on research at the intersection of computing and the sciences and aims to enable and accelerate “new kinds” of science and computing. He is also head of the Computational Biology Group at Microsoft Research Cambridge.

Emmott has worked in research fields at the intersection of computing and science for almost two decades through appointments at AT&T Bell Laboratories; BT Laboratories; as founder, chief scientist and director of NCR Corp’s advanced research lab; at University College London; and at the University of Stirling Centre for Computational and Cognitive Neuroscience.

His work has been featured in Nature, Science, The Economist, the BBC, The Financial Times, MIT Technology Review, The New York Times and The Times. Emmott initiated and led the Towards 2020 Science project and report, which was the cover feature of Nature in March 2006.

Emmott is a scientific advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was a member of the UK government’s Science and Innovation Framework committee and has been advisor to the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council; the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, UK; the Swiss National Science Foundation; the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation; the World Trade Organization; and the UK Department of Trade and Industry.

Emmott holds a PhD in computational neuroscience and a BSc (first class) in biological science (experimental psychology) from York University, UK. He is a professor of computational science at the University of Oxford and visiting professor of intelligent systems at University College London.