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Overview
Theory group is the newest addition to Microsoft Research Asia's research agenda. The group advances understanding of the foundation of computer science and collaborates with other groups to solve challenging algorithmic and analytical problems. Since its inception, the group has built strong connections with Chinese and international academic community, working jointly on solving fundamental problems in theoretical computer science.
NEW! ----
MSRA Theory Workshop, April 14-18, Beijing, China
Sample project
Fundamental issues of consistency in distributed computing
Distributed systems have become the dominant infrastructure for most Internet services and corporate IT services. A fundamental problem to be solved in distributed systems is data and processing consistency. Large (and sometimes Internet-scale) distributed systems post new demands and challenges to consistency maintenance. The theory group is studying theoretical foundations and algorithms related to consistency in distributed computing. Projects include failure detectors for k-set agreement, weakly consistent P2P overlay, and hierarchical consistency for large-scale systems.
group members:
Acting Manager: Baining Guo
Baining Guo is the research manager of the graphics group at Microsoft Research Asia (formerly Microsoft Research China). Before joining Microsoft, Baining was a senior staff researcher in Microcomputer Research Labs at Intel Corporation in Santa Clara, California, where he worked on graphics architecture. Baining received his Ph.D. and M.S. from Cornell University and his B.S. from Beijing University. Baining is an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. He holds over 30 granted and pending US patents.
Baining's current research focus is texture and appearance in computer graphics. He is especially interested in texture synthesis, appearance modeling, reflectance and shading models, real-time rendering, global illumination, and natural phenomena. Baining is also interested in geometry modeling and facial animation.
In his spare time, Baining enjoys traveling, outdoor sports, music and a good time with friends and family.
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 Lead Researcher: Wei Chen
Wei Chen is a Lead Researcher in the Theory group of Microsoft Research Asia. His main research areas are theory of distributed computing, fault tolerance, and peer-to-peer protocols. His current research topics include failure detection, consensus and k-set agreement, specification and algorithms of P2P overlays, and reliability analysis of distributed storage systems. He has a number of papers published in leading computer science journals and conferences. He has also served as PC member for a number of technical conferences in the area of distributed computing, fault tolerance, and peer-to-peer systems. He is the winner of 2000 William C. Carter Award at 2000 IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), because of the paper "On the quality of service of failure detectors" based on his Ph.D. dissertation.
Wei Chen obtained his bachelor and master degrees from the Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University in 1991 and 1993, and his Ph.D degree from the Department of Computer Science, Cornell University in 2000.
Wei Chen was the captain of Tsinghua University Varsity soccer team, which won Beijing Inter-collegiate Championship twice during his tenure. He was also the captain of the "Tsinghua Veterans" soccer team in North America, which won the championship title of the Annual North America Chinese Soccer Tournament twice.
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Researcher: Ting Zhang
Ting Zhang is a Researcher in the Theory group of Microsoft Research Asia. His main research areas are semantics, specification, and verification of reactive, embedded, real-time, and hybrid systems. His current research focus is automated deduction and its applications to program verification and analysis, including decision procedures for reasoning complex data structures and data structures extended with integer arithmetic.
Ting Zhang obtained B.S. in computer science from Peking University, Masters and PhD in computer science from Stanford University.
In his spare time, Ting enjoys playing tennis, skiing, hiking and other outdoor sports. He is a movie-lover and matrix fan.
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 Visiting Professor: Shanghua Teng
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