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Home > Worldwide Labs and Centers > Microsoft Research New England > New England Lab Current Members' Bios
New England Lab Current Members' Bios

Open since July 2008, Microsoft Research New England would like to introduce and welcome our permanent researchers, post-docs, visiting researchers, weekly visitors, and interns.

Permanent Researchers

Christian Borgs, Deputy Managing Director
Christian Borgs is deputy managing director of Microsoft Research lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is also an affiliate professor of mathematics at the University of Washington. Before becoming deputy managing director of the New England lab, he was a principal researcher and co-manager of the Theory Group at Microsoft Research. Borgs’ research areas include properties of self-engineered networks, phase transitions in theoretical computer science, and algorithmic game theory. Read more... 
   
  danah boyd, Researcher
danah boyd's research centers on the intersection of people, social practices, and technology. She is interested in how mediated environments alter the structural conditions in which people operate and how people navigate and repurpose these environments for their own needs. Her current work investigates how American youth engage with networked publics for sociable purposes. danah is also a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. When bored or frustrated, danah is known to blow off steam by ranting on her blog. Read more...
   
Jennifer Chayes, Managing Director
Jennifer Tour Chayes is managing director of the newly opened Microsoft Research New England lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Before this, she was research area manager for Mathematics, Theoretical Computer Science and Cryptography at Microsoft Research Redmond. Chayes joined Microsoft Research in 1997, when she co-founded the Theory Group. Her research areas include phase transitions in discrete mathematics and computer science, structural and dynamical properties of self-engineered networks, and algorithmic game theory. She is the co-author of almost 100 scientific papers and the co-inventor of more than 20 patents. Read more...
 

 

Henry Cohn, Principal Researcher
Henry Cohn’s mathematical interests include symmetry and exceptional structures; more generally, he enjoys any area in which concrete problems are connected in surprising ways with abstract mathematics. He came to Microsoft Research as a post-doc in 2000 and joined the theory group in 2001. In 2007 he became head of the cryptography group, and in 2008 he moved to Cambridge with Jennifer Chayes and Christian Borgs to help set up Microsoft Research New England. He stays up late at night worrying about why the 16th dimension isn’t like the 8th or 24th. Read more...
 

 

Adam Tauman Kalai, Senior Researcher
Adam was previously an assistant professor of computer science at Georgia Tech and TTI-Chicago. He received a PhD at CMU from the ingenious Avrim Blum, followed by an NSF post-doc at MIT under the wise guidance of Santosh Vempala. His main research interests are game theory (recent), machine learning, and randomized/online algorithms. Read more... 
   
Yael Tauman Kalai, Researcher
Most recently an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Georgia Tech. Before this, Yael was a post-doc at the Weizmann Institute in Israel and Microsoft Research in Redmond. She graduated from MIT, working in cryptography under the superb supervision of Shafi Goldwasser. Read more... 
   
Butler Lampson, Technical Fellow
Butler is a Technical Fellow at Microsoft and an Adjunct Professor at MIT. He has worked on computer architecture, local area networks, raster printers, page description languages, operating systems, remote procedure call, programming languages and their semantics, programming in the large, fault-tolerant computing, transaction processing, computer security, WYSIWYG editors, and tablet computers. He was one of the designers of the SDS 940 time-sharing system, the Alto personal distributed computing system, the Xerox 9700 laser printer, two-phase commit protocols, the Autonet LAN, the SPKI system for network security, the Microsoft Tablet PC software, the Microsoft Palladium high-assurance stack, and several programming languages. He received the ACM Software Systems Award in 1984 for his work on the Alto, the IEEE Computer Pioneer award in 1996 and von Neumann Medal in 2001, the Turing Award in 1992, and the NAE’s Draper Prize in 2004. Read more...
   
Madhu Sudan

Madhu Sudan, Principal Researcher

Madhu Sudan got his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1992, and joined MSR in May 2009 after stints in IBM Research (1992-1997) and MIT (1997-2009) where he was the Fujitsu Professor of EECS and Associate Director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Madhu Sudan's research lies in the fields of computational complexity theory, algorithms and coding theory. He is best known for his works on probabilistic checking of proofs, and on the design of list-decoding algorithms for error-correcting codes. His current research interests include semantic communication and property testing. In 2002, Madhu Sudan was awarded the Nevanlinna Prize, for outstanding contributions to the mathematics of computer science, at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing. Read more...

   

Post-Docs

Mark Braverman, Second-Year Post-Doc
Mark received his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Toronto supervised by Stephen Cook. Mark is interested in a broad range of topics, including computational and communication complexity, mechanism design, machine learning theory and applications of data mining in healthcare. Read more...
   
Niv Buchbinder, Second-Year Post-Doc
Former Ph.D. student in Computer Science at Technion, Israel Institute of Technology under the supervision of Prof Seffi Naor. His main research interests are algorithms for combinatorial problems in offline and online settings. He is also interested in algorithmic game theory problems. His hobbies include hiking and he has already hiked in the Himalaya, in the Patagonian Andes, in Peru and Bolivia, and has also tasted some of Washington state's national parks. Read more...
   
Sharon Goldberg  Sharon Goldberg, First-Year Post-Doc
Sharon Goldberg received her PhD in Electrical Engineering at Princeton University under the direction of Jennifer Rexford and Boaz Barak. Her research focuses on finding practical solutions to problems in network security, by leveraging formal techniques from cryptography and game theory. 
   
Iftach Haitner  Iftach Haitner, Second-Year Post-Doc
Former Ph.D. student at the Weizmann Institute of Sciences advised by Omer Reingold. He did his undergraduate studies at the School of Mathematical Science at Tel Aviv University. Last year he was a summer intern at the Silicon Valley lab. He’s interested in Foundation of Cryptography and Complexity Theory. Married to Liat and has two daughters, and in his (rather limited) free time, he swims and does playback theatre. Read more... 
   
Ce Liu 

Ce Liu, First-Year Post-Doc
Ce Liu just joined MSRNE as a postdoc researcher right after he obtained his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received the BS degree in automation and the ME degree in pattern recognition from the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University in 1999 and 2002, respectively. From 2002 to 2003, he worked at Microsoft Research Asia as an assistant researcher. His research interests include computer vision, computer graphics, and machine learning. He has published more than 20 papers in the top conferences and journals in these fields. He received a Microsoft Fellowship in 2005, the outstanding student paper award at the Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) in 2006, a Xerox Fellowship in 2007, the best student paper award at IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) in 2009.

   

 Ilan Lobel

Ilan Lobel, First-Year Post-Doc
Ilan Lobel received his Ph.D. in Operations Research in 2009 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked under the supervision of Daron Acemoglu, Munther Dahleh and Asu Ozdaglar. In the summer of 2010, he will be joining the faculty of the New York University's Stern School of Business as an Assistant Professor of Information, Operations and Management Sciences. His research interests include network science, game theory and mechanism design, revenue management and distributed optimization. Read more...
   
Hamid Nazerzadeh 

Hamid Nazer Zadeh, First-Year Post-Doc
Former Ph.D. student in operations research at Stanford university, under supervision of professors Amin Saberi and Ashish Goel. Before joining Stanford, Hamid received his B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Sharif University, Tehran. His research interests include Internet markets, game theory, approximation algorithms, and stochastic optimization. Read more...

   
Prasad Raghavendra 

Prasad Raghavendra, First-Year Post-Doc
Prasad Raghavendra received his Phd in Computer Science at University of Washington under the supervision of Venkatesan Guruswami. His research interests include areas of theoretical computer science such as approximation algorithms and inapproximability results for NP-hard optimization problems, error correcting codes, metric embeddings and computational learning. He is the recipient of the Best Paper and Best Student Paper awards at STOC 08. In his free time, he likes to travel, hike and watch tons of movies and shows.

   
Maher Said  Maher Said, First-Year Post-Doc
Maher Said received his PhD in Economics from Yale University, where he worked under the supervision of Dirk Bergemann. His dissertation analyzed bidding behavior in dynamic auction markets, exploring the implications of dynamic buyer populations for the design of institutions and mechanisms. His broader research interests include mechanism and market design, dynamic auctions, and game theory more generally. Maher enjoys traveling and exploring new cities. He also enjoys art galleries and (learning about) classical music. Read more...
   
Alexander (Sasha) Sherstov 

Alexander (Sasha) Sherstov, First-Year Post-Doc

Alexander (Sasha) Sherstov earned his Ph.D. in computer science in August 2009 at the University of Texas at Austin under the direction of Adam Klivans. He has broad research interests in theoretical computer science, including complexity theory (communication complexity, circuit complexity, and analytic models of complexity), computational learning theory, and quantum computing. In particular, he is interested in the study of these questions from the standpoint of mathematical analysis, e.g., duality theory, matrix analysis, and approximation theory.

   
Mohit Singh, Second-Year Post-Doc
Former Ph.D. student in ACO (Algorithms, Combinatorics and Optimization) at Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon, advised by Prof. R. Ravi. He is interested in approximation algorithms and combinatorial optimization. Presently, he is working on approximation algorithms for degree bounded network design problems, as well as approximation algorithms for stochastic optimization problems. Mohit enjoys ultimate Frisbee and looks forward to playing chess in Harvard Square. Read more...
   

Visiting Researchers

Raissa D'Souza 

Raissa D'Souza, University of California at Davis
Raissa D'Souza is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and of Computer Science at the University of California at Davis, as well as an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Her research focuses on mathematical models of self-organization, phase transitions and the structure and function of networked systems. Her current interest is developing methods to enhance or delay the onset of phase transitions in random graphs as well as using random graphs to model statistical properties of interacting networks, such as congruence between social networks and technical artifacts in Open Source Software, the interplay of genetic-regulatory and protein-interaction networks in biological systems, and diffusion of ideas and viruses through distinct communities. Raissa received a PhD in Statistical Physics from MIT, was a Postdoc at Bell Labs and then a Postdoc in the Theory Group at MSR. She will be with the New England Lab until November 10th.

   
Sham Kakade 

Sham Kakade, Toyota Technological Institute/Wharton
Sham will be joining the Department of Statistics at Wharton, University of Pennsylvania as an associate professor this Jan (He recently left the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago). His research interests are in artificial intelligence, machine learning, algorithmic game theory, and computational finance, with particular interests at the intersection of statistical learning and game theory. Though much of his work is mathematical, he is also actively pursuing applications to computer vision, natural language processing, and speech. Sham will be with the New England Lab until December.

   
Ran Raz 

Ran Raz, Weizmann Institute
Ran Raz is a Professor of Math and Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He received is PhD in 1992 from the Hebrew University and after a short post-doc at Princeton University joint the Weizmann Institute in 1994. His main research area is complexity theory, with emphasis on proving lower bounds for computational models. More specifically, he is interested in Boolean and arithmetic circuit complexity, communication complexity, propositional proof theory, probabilistically checkable proofs, quantum computation and communication, and randomness and derandomization. Ran will be with the New England lab through December.

   
Joe Silverman 

Joe Silverman, Brown

Joe Silverman is a professor of mathematics at Brown University. His primary research interests are number theory, especially the arithmetic theory of elliptic curves and higher dimensional algebraic varieties, theoretical cryptography, discrete dynamical systems, and interactions between these areas. Joe received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1982 and was a Moore Instructor at M.I.T. and an associate professor at Boston University before moving to Brown in 1988. He is the author of seven books, including two books on the arithmetic of elliptic curves that won the American Mathematical Society Sloan prize, and he has written more than 100 research papers. Joe will be at the New England lab until the end of January 2010. 

   

Weekly Visitors

Daron Acemoglu, Professor of Economics, MIT
Daron Acemoglu is Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the Economic Growth program of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research. He is also affiliated with the National Bureau Economic Research, the Center for Economic Performance, and the Center for Economic Policy Research, and the Microsoft Research Center. Daron Acemoglu has received a BA in economics at the University of York, 1989, M.Sc. in mathematical economics and econometrics at the London School of Economics, 1990, and Ph.D. in economics at the London School of Economics in 1992. He was also awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 2005, given every two years to the best economist in the United States under the age of 40 by the American Economic Association. Daron will be with the New England Lab through June of 2010. 
   
  Susan Athey, Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Susan Athey is a professor of economics at Harvard University. She previously taught at MIT and Stanford, and she received her PhD from the Stanford GSB in 1995. During 2008, she took leave from Harvard to work full time at Microsoft, serving as Chief Economist, and she continues to serve in that role as a consultant. The focus of both her recent research and her consulting at Microsoft is online advertising. Her broader research interests include auctions and the design of markets, dynamic games and contracts with hidden information, industrial organization, econometric identification, and organizational design. She received the John Bates Clark Medal in 2007 and became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008. She is an elected member of the Council of the Econometric Society as well as the Executive Committee of the American Economic Association. She has two young children, and her husband, Guido Imbens, is also an economics professor at Harvard. Susan will be with the New England Lab until June of 2010. 
   
Michael Grubb 

Michael Grubb, Harvard University

Michael Grubb is an Assistant Professor of Applied Economics in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. Michael Grubb has received a BS in Engineering and a BS in Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, 2000, an M.Phil. in Economics at Oxford, 2002, and a Ph.D. in Business Administration (Economics) at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, 2007. Michael Grubb's research interests are in applied microeconomic theory, industrial organization, and behavioral economics. His recent research topics include: optimal pricing to overconfident consumers, reputational concerns regarding disclosure, and tax-advantaged employee benefits. Michael Grubb will be with the New England lab until December.

   
Avinatan Hassidim 

Avinatan Hassidim, MIT

Avinatan is an MIT research fellow in the xQIT program. He graduated from the Hebrew University under the supervision of Michael Ben-Or, without ever entering the campus on weekdays. Last year, he also co-founded Meterlive, which won the Mobile track in the MIT 100K competition. Avinatan is interested in using TCS to better model the real world. He is fascinated by what quantum computing can say about quantum mechanics, and what mechanism design can say about human behavior. He will be with the New England Lab until January 2010.

   
David Karger  David Karger, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT
David Karger is a member of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the EECS department at MIT. David's research interests range widely. One focus is personal information management (the ways people collect, visualize, and manage the information that is important to them), which he explores with his Haystack group. Another is the analysis of algorithms, particularly the application of algorithmic techniques to problems in practice. David has also done work on peer-to-peer systems, machine learning, network coding, classical information retrieval, mechanism design, scheduling theory, and the Semantic Web. He has also spent some time working at Akamai and consulting for Google and Vanu, Inc. David will be with the New England Lab until December 2009.
   
Michael Mitzenmacher  

Michael Mitzenmacher, Harvard University

Michael Mitzenmacher is a Professor of Computer Science in the
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University.
He graduated summa cum laude with a degree in mathematics and computer science from Harvard in 1991. After studying
math for a year in Cambridge, England, on the Churchill Scholarship, he obtained his Ph. D. in computer science at U.C. Berkeley in 1996. He then worked at Digital Systems Research Center until joining the Harvard faculty in 1999. Michael has authored or co-authored over 100 conference and journal publications on a variety of topics, including Internet algorithms, hashing, load-balancing, erasure codes, error-correcting codes, compression, bin-packing, and power laws. His work on low-density parity-check codes shared the 2002 IEEE Information Theory Society Best Paper Award. His textbook on probabilistic techniques in computer science, co-written with Eli Upfal, was published in 2005 by Cambridge University Press. Michael will be with the New England lab through December 2009.

 

 

Markus Mobius 

Markus Mobius, Harvard

Markus Mobius is Associate Professor of economics at Harvard University and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His main research interests lie in social networks, with a particular focus on cooperation and trust in social networks. He does both theoretical and experimental research (mainly field experiments). Markus received his PhD from MIT in 2000 and previously earned an M.Phil in economics and a B.A. n mathematics from Oxford University. He and his wife Tanya Rosenblat live in Ames, Iowa and have two daughters. Markus will be with the New England Lab until June 2010.  

   
Peter Winkler 

Peter Winkler, Dartmouth

Peter Winkler is Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, and Albert Bradley Third Century Professor in the Sciences, at Dartmouth College. His mathematical interests include combinatorics, probability, and the theory of computing. Formerly Director of Fundamental Mathematics Research at Bell Labs, he holds a dozen patents in computing, cryptology, holography, optical networking and marine navigation. He is also the author of two collections of mathematical puzzles, a portfolio of compositions for ragtime piano, and a novel introducing cryptographic techniques for the game of bridge. Peter will be visiting the lab through December 2009.

   

Interns

Zvika Brakerski

Zvika Brakerski, Intern

Zvika Brakerski is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science, under the supervision of Shafi Goldwasser. He received his MSc degree from Tel-Aviv University under the supervision of Boaz Patt-Shamir. His main research interests are foundations of computer science and in particular foundations of cryptography.

   
Xin Li 

Xin Li, Intern
Xin Li is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, under the supervision of David Zuckerman. His research interests include the use of randomness in computation, especially extractors and pseudo-randomness, distributed computing, coding theory and complexity theory. He received his BS and MS degrees from Tsinghua University.

 
   
Meet the Researchers