Microsoft Research Asia, Microsoft's fundamental research arm in the Asia Pacific region, conducts fundamental, curiosity-driven research with the goal of realizing Microsoft's vision of future computing. By harnessing the best talent from across Asia and the world, Microsoft Research Asia has grown from its nascent beginnings in 1998 into a world-class research lab that is constantly pushing the state-of-the-art forward and improving the computing experience for information technology users.
This year, Microsoft Research Asia will mark a decade of innovation. Over the past 10 years, our researchers and engineers have pushed the boundaries of innovation, reached out into their imaginations to turn ideas into reality, and helped build the lab into a world leading research institution. What we have achieved has exceeded people's wildest expectations.
In its ten-year history, Microsoft Research Asia has grown into an organization that employs over 350 researchers and engineers, has welcomed more than 3,000 interns, has awarded over 250 Microsoft fellowships, has published over 3,000 papers for top international journals and conferences, and has achieved many technological breakthroughs. We have extended the scope of our university relations programs by establishing joint labs with universities in Asia, conducting joint research programs, and hosting top-notch visiting professors at our lab. These relationships have allowed us to create new opportunities for both Microsoft and the academia in the Asia Pacific region.
Technologies from Microsoft Research Asia have had an influence not only within Microsoft but also on the broader community. Over 260 innovations from the lab have been transferred to Microsoft products, including Office XP, Office System 2003, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, Xbox, MSN, Windows Live and our company's latest releases ¨C Windows Vista and Office 2007. In addition, technologies from the lab have been adopted by international standards bodies such as MPEG4 (error-resilient video transmission), IETF (TCP/IP header compression), and ITU/ISO (video-compression technology).
The world has taken notice of our achievements. The MIT Technology Review named Microsoft Research Asia "The World's Hottest Computer Lab" in 2004. In China, our lab was awarded "The Best Industrial Research Lab" in two consecutive years.
Research Environment
Over the past ten years, Microsoft Research Asia has excelled at creating an "academic environment", where researchers are free to pursue areas of science that are of interest to them, and that fosters a culture that looks for ways to make an impact on the world of information technology. This culture not only drives researchers to develop groundbreaking technologies and work at the cutting edge, but has also made Microsoft Research Asia a natural partner for universities and governments in the region.
Much of our success is a result of the unique culture that we have fostered at the lab. A culture that is open to new ideas, a culture that sets high standards for research excellence, a culture that that recognizes the value of peer review and sharing our results with the academic community, and one that understands that success cannot come without taking risk.
Whether inspired by a suggestion from a customer, or simply searching for a better way, researchers and engineers at Microsoft Research Asia work in an atmosphere with minimal bureaucracy and enjoy broad independence. They have the freedom to pursue research areas of their interest and collaborate with product teams and academic partners.
If you are driven to innovate, want to work in an environment that allows you to leverage resources to influence tomorrow's reality, and have fun while doing it, Microsoft Research Asia is the place for you to start on your path to success.
Research Areas
Microsoft Research Asia's ambitious research agenda includes five areas central to Microsoft's long-term vision and strategy:
Natural User Interfaces enable users to interact with a computer using speech, gestures, and expressions.
Next-generation Multimedia allows people to search for and to be immersed in interactive online shopping, education, meeting, and entertainment activities.
Data-Intensive Computing explores the new infrastructures, algorithms, tools, and applications to collect, analyze, and mine results for data-intensive business in both the consumer and enterprise sectors.
Search and Online Ads take Web search and online advertising to the next level by applying data-mining, machine-learning, and knowledge-discovery techniques to information analysis, organization, retrieval, and visualization.
Fundamental Computer Science includes areas such as theoretical computer science (theory), systems, networking, and machine learning that will have an impact on multiple applications and products.
Product Partnership
Innovation Engineering Group
Microsoft Research Asia researchers have collaborated with product groups over the years to ship over 200 innovations in Microsoft products. The Innovation Engineering team supports these technology transfers, and fosters new product incubation, by bringing together software design engineers, user experience experts, program managers, business strategists and others to help turn ideas into reality. Engineers in Innovation Engineering tackle challenging projects based on advanced research technologies, and deliver high quality software and deployed services. The group applies expertise in software development, testing and operations. Over the years, the Innovation Engineering Group, working together with Microsofts various product groups, has assisted in the transfer of over 120 technologies from Microsoft Research Asia.
Search Technology Center
Microsoft Research Asia launched its Search Technology Center in October 2005. The center is dedicated to pushing the state of the art in search forward and delivering innovations and a more intelligent search experience to MSN users around the world. By leveraging data mining, machine learning, and knowledge discovery techniques to drive information analysis, organization, retrieval, and visualization, the Search Technology Center is taking search to a new level. A key to this effort is successfully synergizing fundamental research, software development, and technology transfer expertise. These disciplines and skills make Microsoft Research Asia's Search Technology Center one of the most versatile, challenging, and rewarding research and development places.
Leadership
Managing Director: Dr. Hsiao-Wuen Hon
Dr. Hsiao-Wuen Hon is managing director of Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing. He oversees the research activities at Microsoft Research Asia and the lab's collaborations with universities in Asia Pacific. Dr. Hon joined the lab in 2004 as a deputy managing director, overseeing research in areas such as Internet search, data mining, speech, natural language processing, system, wireless and networking, Internet media, and hardware. In addition to research, Dr. Hon also managed MSN Search product development in China.
Assistant Managing Director: Dr. Baining Guo
Dr. Baining Guo is a assistant managing director with Microsoft Research Asia, where he manages graphics research groups. Prior to joining Microsoft, Dr. Guo was a senior staff researcher with the Microcomputer Research Labs of Intel Corporation, located in Santa Clara, Ca.. Dr. Guo also held faculty positions at the University of Colorado, the University of Toronto, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications in Paris, and York University in Toronto.
Assistant Managing Director: Dr. Wei-Ying Ma
As an assistant managing director based in Beijing at Microsoft Research Asia, he leads a team of talented, passionate researchers to advance the state-of-the-art in Web search and data mining. Under his leadership, the team is pushing the boundaries of current search technologies by leveraging machine learning and knowledge discovery techniques to deliver the next generation of Web search.
Assistant Managing Director: Dr. Feng Zhao
Dr. Feng Zhao is an Assistant Managing Director at Microsoft Research Asia where he oversees multiple research areas including the systems, wireless & networking, hardware computing and media communications groups.
Research Area Manager: Dr. Zheng Zhang
Dr. Zheng Zhang is principle researcher and research area manager of the System and Networking Area (including System Research Group and Wireless and Networking Group) in Microsoft Research Asia.
Senior Director University Relations: Lolan Song
Lolan Song started her career at Microsoft in Redmond more than ten years ago as a systems engineer. She then moved to Tokyo to cover Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Lolan was responsible for various mission-critical business application systems including sales, marketing, customer support, HR, and operations. She successfully managed a number of key projects and earned solid technical and managerial experience.
