Latin American Faculty Summit 2009

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is a lawyer, graduated from the School of Law at National University of La Plata in 1973, where she started her political militant career. President Fernandez de Kirchner has a vast political career and held legislative positions both at provincial and national levels. She started as a legislator in Santa Cruz province from 1989 to 1995, and later as a legislator of the National House of Representatives and Senators until she was elected national president. On October 28, 2007, she was elected president with the political party called “Alianza Frente para la Victoria.” She is the second woman to occupy this position; however, she is the first woman elected by the people.

Daniel O. Scioli graduated with a bachelor degree in Marketing from Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE). Before getting into the political arena, he was devoted to sports. In 1986, he began to compete in water motorsports. After a serious sports accident, Scioli quickly returned to his professional career and then devoted his time to entrepreneurial activities. Scioli’s political career started in 1997 when he was elected National Representative for the City of Buenos Aires and was reelected in 2001. In the presidential elections of 2003, he was elected Vice-President of Argentina, along with President Néstor Kirchner, being the president of the Chamber of Senators until 2007. In 2007, he was elected governor of the Province of Buenos Aires.

José Lino Barañao obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry (1976) and a PhD in Chemistry (1981) from the School of Exact and Natural Sciences (FCEN) at University of Buenos Aires (UBA). Dr. Barañao is a Principal Researcher of the Argentine Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) and Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry of the School of Exact and Natural Sciences (FCEN) at UBA. He is also the Director of the Biotechnology and Animal Reproduction Laboratory at the Experimental Medicine and Biology Institute (IBYME), a center reporting to CONICET and associated to FCEN. Dr. Barañao holds a post graduate degree from University of Pennsylvania and antoher from Max Planck Institute from Germany. From 2003 to 2007, he was the President of the National Agency of Scientific and Technological Promotion, national body that currently resides within the Ministry of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. His basic work centers in the study of the factors that control ovary follicular development, ovulation and early embryo development in species of a zoo-technical interest. He developed a bio-test for the activity of gonadotrophic hormones and obtained the only bovine ovary cells line that currently exists. He was an advisor to several companies in the field of animal biotechnology such as Embryo In Vitro Production, Cloning, and so on. Currently, he is the Head of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and Productive Innovation.

As Corporate Vice President of the External Research Division of Microsoft Research, Tony Hey is responsible for the worldwide external research and technical computing strategy across Microsoft. He leads the company’s efforts to build long-term public-private partnerships with global scientific and engineering communities, spanning broad reach and in-depth engagements with academic and research institutions, related government agencies and industry partners. His responsibilities also include working with internal Microsoft groups to build future technologies and products that will transform computing for scientific and engineering research. Hey also oversees Microsoft Research’s efforts to enhance the quality of higher education around the world. Before joining Microsoft, Hey served as director of the U.K.’s e-Science Initiative, managing the government’s efforts to provide scientists and researchers with access to key computing technologies. Before leading this initiative, Hey worked as head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, where he helped build the department into one of the pre-eminent computer science research institutions in England. Hey is a fellow of the U.K.’s Royal Academy of Engineering and a member of the European Union’s Information Society Technology Advisory Group. He also has served on several national committees in the U.K., including committees of the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry and the Office of Science and Technology. For his service to science, Hey received the award of Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2005 U.K. New Year’s Honours List. Hey is a graduate of Oxford University, with both an undergraduate degree in physics and a doctorate in theoretical physics.

Sandra has a rich professional background and leadership experience of more than 20 years in some of the most respected firms of our industry. She has held top-level positions at SAP, following her very successful tenure as Managing Director for their South Region, including Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia. In this position, she was in charge of all Business Operations, Services, Human Resources, Finances, Sales, Business Development, Business Partners, Marketing, and Citizenship activities for the company. Previous to SAP, she was General Manager for the Central & South America Hispanic organization at EDS. Her professional career started in Siemens Argentina, and continued at IBM, where she held several sales and business leadership positions. Sandra was born in the city of Rafaela, in the Province of Santa Fe, Argentina. She graduated from Universidad Nacional of Rosario and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electronic Engineering. She attended an Intensive post-graduate Strategy Program at London Business School and is now a member of Young President Organization (YPO) and the International Women Forum (IWF). She sits in the Advisory Committee of the IAE School of Business and serves as a Member of the Board of the IDEA Enterprise Development Institute in Argentina. Sandra, who is married to Gabriel, is the proud mother of 19-year old Sofía and a caring aunt of five nephews and nieces. She shares a lot of time with her big Italian-rooted family. She enjoys spending her free time outdoors, plays golf as a hobby—with a handicap of 6—and is fond of cooking and reading.

Dr. Green is the Senior Director of Microsoft External Research and is responsible for Microsoft Research’s external engagement and investment strategy. Microsoft’s External Research is a key part of Microsoft’s Research program and works closely with Academia and Research institutions in helping solve some of the world’s most challenging scientific and social problems. His team and global portfolio includes diverse topics such as Health and Wellbeing, Education and Scholarly Communications, Computer Science and the Environment. Dr Green’s initial research background was in molecular modeling and equations of state for fluid mixtures—his BSc is in Chemical Physics (1989, Sheffield) and his Phd in molecular simulation of fluid mixtures (1992, Sheffield). He went on to do post doctoral research in simulation of polymer and protein folding (1993-4, UCD). This naturally led to application porting and optimization for large-scale parallel and distributed computing in a range of application domains including computational chemistry (molecular dynamics and quantum mechanical codes), radiography, CFD, and FE. Dr. Green then moved more fully into HPC and was responsible for some of Europe’s largest HPC Framework V programs for the European Commission, major HPC procurements in the UK for the UK Research Councils and UK Defense clients, he also led detailed investigations into the maturity and adoption for European HPC Software tools (published). From there Dr. Green went to work for the SGI/Cray—helping to set up the European Professional Services organization from which he span out a small team out to establish the European Professional Services for Selectica Inc. Selectica specialized in on-line configuration/logic-engine technologies offered via Web services. Given an HPC/distributed computing background and familiarity with the then embryonic area of Web Services, IBM invited Dr. Green to help establish its early Grid strategy—this effort began in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa but quickly broadened to be global and he moved to the United States with IBM to form IBM’s Grid EBO. Dr. Green joined Microsoft Research from BT where he was responsible for all sector-based propositions in BT’s Global Services. As well as this, as Director for Global Sector propositions he led the strategy and business design activities across a range of business areas including healthcare, security, public sector engagement, energy management, and sustainability (published). Specifically, in terms of Sustainability—in 2007 established and launched BT’s Sustainability practice—responsible for BT’s business offerings to commercial customers which help reduce their carbon footprints and establish business practices which are sustainable in terms of their social and economic impact (published).

Alejandro Ceccatto graduated in Physics from the University of Rosarioin 1979 and obtained his PhD from the University of La Plata in 1985 working on Quantum Field Theory. During the 80’s, he held research positions at Stanford University in the United States and at the University of Cologne in Germany. During his stay in the United States he became a XEROX Corporation Consultant at XEROX Palo Alto Research Center. Back in Argentina, in 1994 he was appointed Director of the Institute of Physics at the University of Rosario while working with his group in Condensed Matter and, lately, Complex Systems. Since 2001, he was the mastermind behind the reorganization of CERIDER (Regional Center for R&D of CONICET, the National Research Council). In the intervening years and in parallel with his scientific endeavors, he acted as Vice-president of the Argentine Society for Informatics (SADIO), Director of the France-Argentina International Center for Information and Systems Sciences (CIFASIS)—a joint research center University of Marseille/University of Rosario/CONICET—and Executive Director of InnovaRed, the National Research & Education Network of Argentina. He was also associate member of the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP – UNESCO/IAEA/Government of Italy) for fifteen years. He has published more than 100 papers in international refereed journals and directed twelve doctoral theses. Since 2003 he is Associate Editor of “Computers and Electronics in Agriculture” (Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdan, The Netherlands). In January 2008, he was appointed State Secretary for S&T Co-ordination (acting as Deputy Minister) of the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation. Among his responsibilities, he is in charge of the co-ordination of research activities in Argentina’s S&T organisms and universities and their institutional evaluation.

Jorge Aliaga was born in San Miguel, Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1959. He graduated in Physics from the School of Exact and Natural Sciences (FCEN) at University of Buenos Aires (UBA). in 1985. He obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from the same University in 1988. Since 1982, he has been teaching at university level, starting as an undergraduate Teaching Assistant to reach the position of Full Professor in 1993. He was member of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics from 1991 to 1997. He has made contributions in applications of the maximum entropy principle to quantum optics, dynamics of semiconductor lasers with feedback, and dynamics of electronic neurons. Dr. Aliaga has published more than thirty papers in peer review international journals and has been the advisor of two PhD theses. He served as Member of the Directory Council of FCEN-UBA (1992-1996), Member of the Council of the University of Buenos Aires (1999), General Secretary FCEN-UBA (2000-2001 and 2004-2006) and since 2006 as Dean of FCEN-UBA.

Ms. Painter has more than 20 years of experience in the field of economic development, particularly private sector development. She joined the Inter-American Development Bank in 2000 after working as a Senior Manager in the Washington Consulting Practice of one of the leading global consulting firms, Coopers & Lybrand (C&L), later PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). During more than 10 years at C&L and PwC, and earlier at Ernst and Young, Ms. Painter led private sector development projects in countries as diverse as Poland and Bulgaria, the Philippines and Indonesia, Nicaragua and Guinea-Bissau. Since joining the Bank, she has worked on numerous projects throughout Latin America in the areas of productivity and competitiveness policies; technology and innovation; small and medium enterprise (SME) development (credit access, business development services, export promotion, internationalization); promotion of clusters and value chains; business climate; and local/territorial development, including regional innovation systems. At the Bank, Ms. Painter has also served as Senior Advisor for operations in the Southern Cone and since October, 2008 serves as Chief of the Bank’s Science and Technology Division. Ms. Painter received a Master in Business Administration (MBA), Beta Gamma Sigma, from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland in College Park; a Master of Arts from Georgetown University, where she studied economic development in the Latin American Studies Program; and a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Swarthmore College. In addition, she has a Certificate in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Mr. Baptista holds an Engineering Degree in Telecommunications (1972) from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, with advanced studies in Software Engineering and Data Communication Networks. He began his career as a microwave radio engineer at Furnas Centrais Elétricas S.A. and then went on to work for 21 years for EMBRATEL, a major telecommunications operator in Brazil, where he held important managerial posts. Prior to becoming Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL) in March 2000, Mr. Baptista was Special Advisor to the Minister of Communications of Brazil and, subsequently, Head of the Office of International Affairs of ANATEL, Brazil’s telecommunications regulatory agency. He has been an active participant in international conferences and meetings, having represented Brazil on the Council of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and in the WTO negotiations on basic telecommunications services, which led to the Fourth Protocol to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in 1997. Mr. Baptista also served as the OAS representative on the Hemispheric Advisory Board of the Institute for Connectivity in the Americas (ICA), established in the framework of the Third Summit of the Americas, held in Quebec City in 2001 with the aim to promote the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to help overcome barriers to socioeconomic development in Latin American and the Caribbean. On May 1, 2008, he was appointed Director of the OAS Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation, a post he will fill while continuing to perform his functions as head of the CITEL Secretariat. He was recently invited and accepted to join the Joint Steering Committee of the Latin American and Caribbean Collaborative ICT Research Federation (LACCIR), which oversees and directs the LACCIR’s long term development and objectives, geared towards providing LAC Universities with a sustainable virtual collaborative environment to promote cross-country research and education solutions.

Martín Abadi is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft, since 2006. He obtained his PhD at Stanford University in 1987, worked at Digital’s System Research Center and other industrial labs till 2001, then became Professor of Computer Science at the University of California at Santa Cruz. His research is mainly on computer and network security, programming languages, and specification and verification methods. He has contributed, for example, to the design and analysis of security protocols and to the foundations of object-oriented languages. His research on security has been recognized with the Outstanding Innovation Award of the ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control, and with the Hall of Fame Award of the ACM Special Interest Group on Operating Systems. He is a Fellow of the ACM.

George Robertson is an ACM Fellow, a member of the CHI Academy, and a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, where he leads an information visualization research group. Before coming to Microsoft, he was a Principal Scientist at Xerox PARC, working on 3D interactive animation interfaces for intelligent information access. He was the architect of the Information Visualizer. He has also been a Senior Scientist at Thinking Machines, a Senior Scientist at Bolt Beranek and Newman, and a faculty member of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie-Mellon University. In the past, he has made significant contributions to machine learning, multimedia message systems, hypertext systems, operating systems, and programming languages. Robertson serves on the Advisory Board of the Department of Homeland Security National Visualization and Analytics Center. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Information Visualization. He has served on the Information Visualization Steering Committee since 1995. He chaired UIST’97 and InfoVis 2004.

Alex Acero received an M.S. degree from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain, in 1985, an M.S. degree from Rice University, Houston, TX, in 1987, and a Ph.D. degree from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, in 1990, all in Electrical Engineering. Dr. Acero worked in Apple Computer’s Advanced Technology Group in 1990-1991. In 1992, he joined Telefonica I+D, Madrid, Spain, as Manager of the speech technology group. Since 1994 he has been with Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, where he is presently a Research Area Manager directing an organization with more than 70 engineers conducting research in audio, speech, multimedia, communication, natural language, and information retrieval. He is also an affiliate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. Dr. Acero is author of the books Acoustical and Environmental Robustness in Automatic Speech Recognition (Kluwer, 1993) and Spoken Language Processing (Prentice Hall, 2001), has written invited chapters in 4 edited books and more than 200 technical papers. He holds 53 U.S. patents. Dr. Acero is a Fellow of IEEE. He has served the IEEE Signal Processing Society as Vice President Technical Directions (2007-2009), 2006 Distinguished Lecturer, member of the Board of Governors (2004-2005), Associate Editor for IEEE Signal Processing Letters (2003-2005) and IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing (2005-2007), and member of the editorial board of IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing (2006-2008) and IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (2008-2010). He also served as member (1996–2000) and Chair (2000-2002) of the Speech Technical Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. He was Publications Chair of ICASSP98, Sponsorship Chair of the 1999 IEEE Workshop on Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding, and General Co-Chair of the 2001 IEEE Workshop on Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding. Since 2004, Dr. Acero, along with co-authors Drs. Huang and Hon, has been using proceeds from their textbook, Spoken Language Processing to fund the “IEEE Spoken Language Processing Student Travel Grant” for the best ICASSP student papers in the speech area. Dr. Acero is member of the editorial board of Computer Speech and Language and he served as member of Carnegie Mellon University Dean’s Leadership Council for College of Engineering.

People have been inventing new ideas in computer systems for nearly four decades, usually driven by Moore’s Law. Many of them have been spectacularly successful: networks and the Web, relational databases, and graphical user interfaces are just a few examples. The fate of other promising ideas is still in doubt: parallel computing, formal methods, and software reuse. But great opportunities also lie before us: highly dependable and highly adaptable systems, and embodied machines that integrate with the physical world, such as cars that drive themselves or sensor networks that monitor the health of our environment and the safety of our streets. Broadly viewed, computers can be used for simulation, for communication, and for embodiment. The last is the newest and the most exciting. Butler Lampson is a Technical Fellow at Microsoft Corporation 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.

Jaime Puente is a Senior Research Program Manager of Microsoft External Research and is responsible for Microsoft Research’s external engagement in Latin America. Jaime spent 13 years as a faculty member in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL) in Ecuador. While it was difficult to leave academia to join the industry, Jaime feels that he is still involved with the academic world through his work in External Research. He works closely with faculty and graduate students to create greater opportunities for them to pursue research. In addition, Jaime spent five years at various managing-level positions in the banking industry in Ecuador as Telecommunications and Information Technology Manager. This work kept him engaged with leading technology on a very personal level creating greater integration for the banks and the customers. Before joining Microsoft Research in 2003, Jaime worked as a Technical Project Manager for Latin America in the Professional Services division of Commerce One Inc., an e-business company based out of South Florida. Jaime Puente was a Fulbright Scholar for his early engagement with Academia. It was during his time as a Fulbright Scholar that he started to lecture and conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields exploring how academia and industry needs intersect. His educational background includes a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from Iowa State University, a Master’s of Business Administration, and an Electronics Engineering degree both from ESPOL in Ecuador. Jaime is currently a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences at NOVA Southeastern University in Florida, United States. His main research interest are in computing for the developing world and educational technology.

Ignacio Casas is a full-time professor of information technologies at the Department of Computer Science, School of Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica (PUC) Chile. He graduated in 1976 as a Civil Electrical Enginner from PUC Chile and has a M.Sc. and Ph.D. (1986) in Computer Science from University of Toronto, Canada. His main research interests are in the areas of ICT management and TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning) environments and tools. He served as CIO at PUC Chile from 1995 to 2005 and is responsible of introducing TEL systems in his university. Ignacio is the co-founder and co-director of the 12-years-old RELATED network for the advancement of TEL in Latin America and is actually the executive director of the LACCIR Federation Virtual Institute. He is an active member of IEEE and Colegio de Ingenieros de Chile.

Sergio F. Ochoa is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chile. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Catholic University of Chile (2002). He did post-doctoral studies in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2003-2004). His research interests include Computer-Supported Collaborative Work, Educational Technology and Software Engineering. Dr. Ochoa is an active member of IEEE and Chilean Computer Society. He is also member of the joint steering committee of LACCIR (Latin American and Caribbean Collaborative ITC Research federation) and Chilean representative in CLEI (Centro Latinoamericano de Estudios en Informática). In addition, he is IT consultant of some Chilean public and private organizations.

Javier Baliosian received the degree of Computer Engineer from the University of the Republic (Uruguay) in 1998, and his PhD from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain) in 2005. Dr. Baliosian has been working professionally since 1994 as a developer, designer, architect, and leader of diverse distributed systems developments, with a particular focus on network management applications since 1999. He has been involved in several collaborative research projects with different research groups such as the Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and the Laboratory of Communication Networks at KTH (Sweden). In 2005, Dr. Baliosian obtained a Marie Curie Fellowship from the European Commission for a post-doctoral position at Ericsson Ireland where he worked as a researcher and project coordinator. Currently, he is an Adjunct Professor at the University of the Republic in Uruguay. Dr. Baliosian’s research interests include networks in general, and policy-based management and autonomic communications in particular.

Rosa A. Alarcon is an assistant professor at PUC, she obtained her MsC and PhD degrees from Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in 2004. She worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Universidad de Chile and joined PUC in 2005 in the area of software engineering. Her research interests are related to distributed systems such as multi-agent platforms and service-oriented computing, as well as knowledge base representation—particularly ontologies. Currently she is focused on the convergence of Web technology, semantics, and semantic Web services. Rosa is part of SIGSE (Special Interest Group on Software Engineering).

Claudia Pons is an Assistant Professor at the Computer Science College (UNLP) and a researcher at CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas) (National Bureau of Scientific and Technical Research) developing her activities at LIFIA of UNLP. She obtained her PhD in 2000, in the area of Formal Semantics for software modeling languages. She is currently leading R&D projects related to this field of knowledge. Claudia’s research interests are placed in the area of software engineering, in particular software modeling and formal methods.

Genoveva Vargas-Solar is senior researcher of the Data and Knowledge Management Group of the Research Centre of Information and Automation Technologies at Universidad de las Américas Puebla. She is also senior researcher of the French Council of Scientific Research (CNRS) and she is member of the HADAS group of the Informatics Laboratory of Grenoble, France. She is deputy director the Franco-Mexican Laboratory of Informatics and Automatic Control (LAFMIA). She is elected president of the Mexican Society of Computer Science. In 2000, she obtained her first PhD degree in Computer Science at University Joseph Fourier and in 2005 she obtained her second PhD degree in Literature at University Stendhal. In 1997 she obtained her first Master Degree in Computer Science at University Joseph Fourier and in 1998 she obtained her second Master Degree in Compared Literature at University Stendhal. She did her undergraduate studies on Computer Systems Engineering at Universidad de las Américas in Puebla. Her research interests in Computer Science concern distributed and heterogeneous databases, reflexive systems and service based database systems. Her research interests in Literature concern middle age Literature, myths’ critics and myths’ analysis applied to different myths of origins. She has coordinated several research projects in Europe and Latin America financed by governments and industrial partners. She actively promotes the scientific cooperation in Computer Science between Latin America and Europe particularly between France and Mexico.

Alvaro Soto received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 2002; and a M.Sc. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Louisiana State University in 1997. He joined the Computer Science Department at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, where he became Associate Professor in 2007. His main research interests are in Statistical Machine Learning and Mobile Robotics.

Claudia Bauzer Medeiros is full professor of Computer Science at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil, having received awards for research, teaching, and work concerning women and IT. Her research is centered on design and development of scientific databases, with emphasis on agro-environmental planning and biodiversity. She was the President of the Brazilian Computer Society for four years. In 2008, she was awarded the Brazilian Order of Scientific Merit (grade Commander).

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Flavio Soares Correa da Silva completed his undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering in 1984 at the University of São Paulo (Brazil), his MSc in logistics and transportation planning in 1989 at the same university, and his PhD in artificial intelligence in 1992 at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland). Since 1992 he has been a full time lecturer and researcher at the University of São Paulo. In 1999 Flavio was awarded the title of “livre- docente”. Flavio has published more than 60 technical papers in international journals and conferences, as well as 6 technical books. Since 2005, Flavio has received support from Microsoft Research to develop research projects.

Meredith Ringel Morris is a researcher in the Adaptive Systems and Interaction Group at Microsoft Research. She is also an affiliate assistant professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. Merrie’s main research areas are human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative work. Her current research focus is on developing and evaluating systems that support collaborative Web search. She earned her SB in computer science from Brown University and her MS and PhD in computer science from Stanford University, where her dissertation introduced interaction techniques for supporting cooperative work around tabletop displays. She was named one of 2008’s “35 technology innovators under age 35” by Technology Review magazine.

Sebastian Uchitel is a Professor at the Department of Computing, FCEN, University of Buenos Aires and researcher of CONICET, Argentina. He also holds a Readership at Imperial College London. His research interests are in behavior modeling and analysis of requirements and design for complex software-intensive systems. His research focuses on partial behaviour modelling, including scenario-based specifications, behaviour model synthesis and modal transition systems. His research also includes goal-oriented requirements engineering, reliability, software architectures and service-oriented architectures. Dr. Uchitel is currently associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering and the Requirements Engineering Journal, he was program co-chair of the 21st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2006) held in Tokyo and is the program co-chair of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2010). Dr Uchitel has recently been distinguished with the Philip Leverhulme Prize.

Alex Wade is Director for Scholarly Communication within Microsoft External Research, where he oversees several projects related to researcher productivity tools, semantic information capture, and the interoperability of information systems. Alex holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the University of California Berkeley, and a Master’s of Librarianship degree from the University of Washington. During his career at Microsoft, Alex has managed the corporate search and taxonomy management services; has shipped a SharePoint-based document and workflow management solution for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance; and served as Program Manager for search within Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Keith O’Hara is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA. His research interests include autonomous robotics, distributed robot systems, and computer science education. He will start this coming September an assistant professor at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

John Nordlinger has a Philosophy degree from Northeastern University. Now at Microsoft Research; John addresses enhancing computer science with gaming themes. He produces The Microsoft Research gaming kit, manages an initiative on gaming in computer science, and works on related assets and events. John has co-authored three papers at ACM SIGCSE 08. John has written, directed, and produced his first short film, “Allegory of the Game” a MMORPG interpretation to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” which was selected at the 2008 Chicago Short Film Festival. John is co-editing a new book, WoW and Philosophy – Wrath of the Philosopher King, and contributed to Karen Schrier’s Ethics and Game Design Compendium. John is also the Captain for the Game Design track in Imagine Cup.

Dr. Joe Tront is a professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering in the Bradley ECE Department at Virginia Tech. He is an international thought leader in the deployment and use of tablet PCs in learning environments. He has responsibility for developing techniques for the appropriate use and assessment of mobile learning technology across the university. In addition to the faculty and student training he provides at Virginia Tech, Joe has delivered over 50 workshops world-wide where he has introduced people to the new technology and has provided them with methods to enhance the way they teach and the way they perform their daily work using mobile devices such as tablet PCs. Dr. Tront received his Ph.D. from State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo and has worked in a variety of technical fields including integrated circuit design, space-based systems, computer and network security as well as learning psychology as applied to engineering education. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and has published numerous papers in professional society journals and conferences. He has received several awards for his leadership in the use of technology in the learning environment including the Computerworld Laureate medal. Outside of the office he enjoys snow skiing, water skiing, biking, and officiating college football on most fall weekends.

Miguel Nussbaum, Electrical Engineer, Universidad Católica de Chile, 1980, Master of Science in ‘Information and Computer Science’, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, United States, 1984, Doktor der Technischen Wissenschaften, ‘Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule’ (ETH), Zürich, Switzerland, 1988. Is full professor for Computer Science at the School of Engineering of the Catholic University of Chile, has been or is member of the board of the Chilean National Science Foundation, FONDECYT, member of the Education committee of the Fund for the Promotion of Scientific and Technological Development of Chile, FONDEF, member of the “Interim Scientific Advisory Board of the UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge”, winner of the Innovation in Education for the Americas of the Organization of American States in 2004, and considered one of the 50 innovative Chileans of 2007. He has more than 50 publications in journals of the ISI catalog. His pedagogical methodology supported by collaborative technology for transforming the classroom experience is used in more than 70 schools in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, England, and the United States.

Alexander Szalay is the Alumni Centennial Professor of Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University. He is also Professor in the Department of Computer Science. He is a cosmologist, working on the statistical measures of the spatial distribution of galaxies and galaxy formation. He was born and educated in Hungary. After graduation, he spent postdoctoral periods at UC Berkeley and the University of Chicago, before accepting a faculty position at Johns Hopkins. In 1990, he has been elected to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as a Corresponding Member. He is the architect for the Science Archive of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. He is Project Director of the NSF-funded National Virtual Observatory. He has written more than 450 papers in various scientific journals, covering areas from theoretical cosmology to observational astronomy, spatial statistics, and computer science. In 2003, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2004, he received an Alexander Von Humboldt Award in Physical Sciences, in 2008 a Microsoft Award for Technical Computing. In 2008, he became Doctor Honoris Clausa of the Eötvös University, Budapest.

Marty Humphrey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia. He received a B.S. and M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Clarkson University in 1986 and 1989, respectively. He received his Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of Massachusetts in 1996. From 1996 to 1998, he was an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Colorado at Denver. From 1998 to 2002, he was a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia working on Legion project, primarily working on aspects of usability, performance, and security. From 2002 to 2008, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia.

Roger Barga is Principal Architect of External Research in Microsoft Research, where he leads the Advanced Research Services and Tools (ARTS) team. The ARTS team is responsible for developing innovative tools and services using Microsoft products and technology to revolutionize and accelerate research, and it provides strategic and tactical hands-on technological leadership to projects across External Research. Roger joined Microsoft in 1997 as a Researcher in the Database Group of Microsoft Research, where he directed both systems research and product development efforts in database, workflow, and stream processing systems. He has developed ideas from basic research, through proof of concept prototypes to incubation efforts in product groups. Roger has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers, filed more than 30 patent applications, and served more than 70 times on program committees for more than 30 different international conferences and workshops.

Christophe Poulain is a Senior Research Software Developer in the Advanced Research Tools and Services team of External Research. He enjoys producing innovative software systems that can advance scientific research or can solve difficult engineering problems. His current interests include using cloud-based tools and services to facilitate data-intensive and compute-intensive scientific research. He has more than 14 years of experience developing commercial software for a variety of applications ranging from process simulation and real-time plant optimization (Aspen Technology; NeuCo) to systems-biology and drug discovery (Teranode). He has a doctoral degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington.

Yan joined Microsoft Research in March 2006. Her research has been focused on exploring technologies and pedagogical strategies that facilitate and enhance interdisciplinary computational research and education. She is responsible for the WorldWide Telescope Academic Program, which enables collaborations with academic researchers and educators in computer science and astronomy; and the Transform Science–Computational Education for Scientists initiative, which enables collaborations with academia for infusing computational thinking into science education to create tomorrow’s scientists.

Jonathan is a fifteen-year Microsoft veteran. He is an avid amateur astronomer who designed and built his own automated domed observatory where he shows his five children the beauty of the universe.

Guillermo Bosch graduated with a degree in Astronomy at National University of La Plata in 1994 and obtained his PhD degree at University of Cambridge (U.K.) in 1999. Back in the city of La Plata since 2000, he is working as a Scientific Researcher in the Argentine Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) since 2002 and also as a Professor at the Faculty of Astronomy from National University of La Plata. Dr. Bosch enjoys playing any sport he can learn and turning his two kids into sport fans too.

Federico Lois has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Since his early university days, he has been fascinated by fractals and computer graphics—especially 3D technology. His current research focus is in High Performance Computing on Graphical Processing Units. He also works as a consultant on software and products development, systems optimization, and human process design. He also likes to ride the academic research body of knowledge and create demos of published research work just for the fun of it.

Simone Diniz Junqueira Barbosa has a degree in Electronics Engineering from PUC-Rio, where she also obtained her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Computer Science. Her professional experience includes several years of consultancy in human-computer interaction (HCI) and software design and development of commercial applications and Web sites, as well as training and education. From 1999 to 2001, she worked as Associate Researcher at Tecgraf/PUC-Rio, in the area of Human-Computer Interaction. In 2001, she joined the Informatics Department of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) as Assistant Professor, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses, and does research in the field of HCI, as seen from a semiotic engineering perspective. Level 2 researcher in CNPq, her current research interests involve model-based interactive systems design; bridging HCI and software engineering; increasing the quality of use (for example, usability, communicability, and accessibility) of interactive systems in diverse domains, by means of adaptation, analogy-making mechanisms, and other artificial intelligence techniques; using Tablet PCs in education; and HCI applied to interactive digital TV. Since 2005, Prof. Barbosa is also the head of the Semiotic Engineering Research Group laboratory. She was program co-chair of the first Latin-American Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (CLIHC 2003, late-breaking results co-chair for the main ACM conference on HCI, CHI 2005, and general co-chair of IFIP TC 13’s HCI conference, INTERACT 2007, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Nico Kicillof is a Lead Program Manager in Microsoft’s Protocol Engineering Team in Redmond, Washington. He manages the definition of protocol documentation quality assurance process and the development of software tools for protocol specification and quality assurance by using lightweight formal methods. Before his current position, he was Assistant Professor and Deputy Head of the Computer Science Department at University of Buenos Aires.

Permanand Mohan is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus in Trinidad and Tobago. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Dr. Mohan is currently pursuing research on a mobile telemedicine project for patients suffering from diabetes and cardio-vascular disease in the Caribbean. This project was funded by Microsoft Research as part of its “Cellular Phone as a Platform for Healthcare” RFP. Dr. Mohan also conducts research on the use of mobile technology to provide on-going education to patients with diabetes and cardio-vascular disease and on using mobile phones to support the learning of mathematics at the secondary level. He presently supervises several postgraduate students in the areas of mobile health, mobile learning, e-learning, and games for learning.

Professor Robinson Rivas-Suarez obtained his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Universidad del Zulia in Maracaibo, Venezuela, in 1994 and his master’s degree in Computer Science from Universidad Simon Bolivar in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1999. He worked as network engineer in the Okinawa International Center in Naha, Japan, in 1999. Prof. Rivas-Suares became a PhD Candidate at Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas in 2008. He is also a certified CCNA, CCIE, and JAVA developer.