I have been a Researcher in the Text Mining, Search, and Navigation Group at Microsoft Research since May 2006. Prior to that I was a Faculty Research Associate in the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland. Prior to that I was a Ph.D. candidate in the Information Retrieval Group in the Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, U.K. In October 2004 I completed my doctoral studies on the development and testing of new ways to help people search collections such as the World Wide Web. I have published numerous journal and conference articles on human aspects of Web searching and the development of Web search interfaces to help users. In 2001 I received the UNISYS Executive of Interest prize for my final year undergraduate project. In 2003 I was the recipient of a Royal Society of Edinburgh J.M. Lessells Travel Scholarship. I was the co-recipient of Best Paper Award at the INTERACT 2003 conference, the Best Student Paper at the 2004 European Conference on Information Retrieval, and the Best Paper at the 2007 ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval. I have been an active participant in the EPSRC research project named POW! and I was involved in two U.S. government funded projects at the University of Maryland: MALACH (Multilingual Access to Large Spoken Archives) and HERMES (Helping Retrieve Archived Messages). I have been co-chair and editor of numerous conference workshops and journal special issues. I was posters chair of the 30th European Conference on Information Retrieval, held in April 2008. In 2005 I received the BCS/CPHC Distinguished Dissertation Award for the best Computer Science Ph.D. dissertation in the United Kingdom. I serve on the editorial board of the Journal of Information Retrieval.

Education/Employment

Researcher : May 2006 - Present
Text Mining, Search, and Navigation Group, Microsoft Research, Redmond, U.S.A.
Role: Interactive Information Retrieval (and beyond)

Faculty Research Associate : November 2004 - May 2006
Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, U.S.A.
Role: Research in Interactive Information Retrieval

Ph.D. Candidate : October 2001 - October 2004
Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, U.K.
Supervisors: Joemon M. Jose, Ian Ruthven, C.J. van Rijsbergen
Title: Implicit Feedback for Interactive Information Retrieval

Visiting Research Scientist : October 2003 - December 2003
Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, U.S.A.

Summer Internship : June 2001 - September 2001
Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, U.K.
Title: Substituting Implicit Feedback for Explicit Feedback in Web Retrieval

Bachelor of Science (joint honours) : October 1997 - June 2001
University of Glasgow, Glasgow, U.K.
Majors: Computing Science and Management Studies

Awards

Best Paper Award at 30th ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR 2007)
BCS/CPHC Distinguished Dissertation Award for the best Computer Science Ph.D. dissertation in the United Kingdom for 2004/2005
Best Student Paper Award at the 26th European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR 2004)
The Brian Shackel Award for Best Paper at the 9th IFIP TC13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT 2003)
Royal Society of Edinburgh, J.M. Lessells Travel Scholarship (2003/2004)
UNISYS Executive of Interest Project Prize for best Undergraduate Computing Science Thesis, Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow (2000/2001)
Computing Science Prize 2002 for the best 1st year PhD report, Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow (2001/2002)
Best Student Poster Award, Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow (2000/2001)

Publications

A current list of my publications is available here.

Teaching Experience

Spring 2006: Co-instructor (with Bill Kules) of LBSC 795 (Principles of Human-Computer Communication).

Spring 2005: Co-instructor (with Doug Oard) of LBSC 878 (Doctoral Seminar in Information Storage and Retrieval).

I have experience in lecturing, tutoring and demonstrating students of a variety of skill levels. Tutoring involved leading groups of around 20 students in discussions about their work, helping them resolve problems and assessing their work. Those teaching related activities I have engaged in during my Ph.D. in the Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow are:

Level 1 Tutor (Sessions 2001/2002 and 2002/2003): Responsibility for tutoring modules in Programming and Computer Systems.
Level 2 Tutor and Degree Exam Marker (Session 2003/2004): Responsibility for tutoring modules in Software Design and Implementation, Database Systems and Human-Computer Interaction.
Level 4 Guest Lecturer - Information Retrieval 4 (Sessions 2002/2003 and 2003/2004): Lectured on Interactive Information Retrieval and Experimental Design and Analysis
M.Sc. in Information Technology Guest Lecturer - Information Retrieval (Session 2002/2003): Lectured on building Information Retrieval Systems using the Java Programming Language