It seems like only yesterday that the eScience team at Microsoft Research came up with the idea of recognizing outstanding contributions to the field of data-intensive computing with an award named in memory of Jim Gray. Jim was a man of vision. The breadth and clarity of the agenda he set forth has provided a roadmap that extends beyond traditional data-intensive research to the maturing field of eScience.
Last night, October 9, our annual Jim Gray Award banquet brought the 2012 Microsoft eScience Workshop (opens in new tab) to a close. As I stood on stage, presenting the Jim Gray eScience Award (opens in new tab) to Antony John Williams, I remembered Jim and thought to myself, “Jim would be pleased with this choice.”
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Antony is leading the charge to show how experience, knowledge, insight, and crowd-sourced contributions can build a platform to facilitate a semantic web for chemistry. ChemSpider (opens in new tab) provides the means by which that can be realized now. Jim valued doers, and, with his pioneering spirit and energy, Antony is exactly that: a doer.
Jim Gray himself was the ultimate doer, a man with far-ranging interests—from astronomy to zoology, literally A to Z—but none was dearer to him than the idea of using computers to make scientists more productive. Jim had the clarity to see the revolutionary impact of what’s come to be known as Big Data—how data-intensive science had ushered in a new era, which he ccalled the Fourth Paradigm. At the time of his loss at sea (while sailing, another of his myriad interests), Jim was working with the science community to build a worldwide digital library to integrate all scientific literature and its underlying data in one easily-accessible collection.
Which is why the selection of Antony is so very apt. Antony’s work on ChemSpider aligns precisely with Jim’s vision of a global digital library of science. Jim would also have appreciated the diversity of Antony’s many endeavors. Currently vice president of strategic development and head of Chemoinformatics for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Antony has pursued a career built on rich experience in experimental techniques, implementation of new nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technologies, research and development, and teaching, as well as analytical laboratory management.
His selection as the 2012 winner of the Jim Gray eScience Award acknowledges Antony’s leadership in making chemistry publically available through collective action. ChemSpider provides fast text and structure search access to data and links on more than 28 million chemicals, and this marvelous resource is freely available to the scientific community and the general public. Like the previous five winners of the Jim Gray award, Antony’s contributions to eScience have led to the advancement of science through the use of computing. As I said, I am sure that Jim would be pleased with this year’s choice.
—Tony Hey (opens in new tab), Vice President, Microsoft Research Connections
Learn More
- Read Antony’s blog post about receiving the Jim Gray Award (opens in new tab)
- Jim Gray eScience Award (opens in new tab)
- 2012 eScience in Action Workshop (opens in new tab)
- eScience at Microsoft Research Connections (opens in new tab)
- The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery (opens in new tab)
- ChemSpider: the free chemical database (opens in new tab)