Microsoft’s recent hiring of 14 Yahoo researchers now taking shape as the company is all set to launch a new research center in New York pushing its research in a new direction and complement its existing teams. The new lab will become the thirteenth Microsoft Research office worldwide, but it is being heralded as a particularly significant addition, according to researchers who will work directly with the New York team.
“The addition of Microsoft Research New York City reflects the company’s long-term investment in basic research,” said Rick Rashid, Microsoft chief research officer and head of Microsoft Research. “In concert with Microsoft’s product groups, Microsoft Research guides and influences the company’s pursuit of applying transformative technologies and new technology trends to its products and services.”
The new lab, to be based in Manhattan, will be led by Jennifer Chayes, who becomes the managing director of both Microsoft Research New England, which she founded in July 2008, and Microsoft Research New York City. Fifteen world-class researchers form the lab’s initial team, including three founding members, each of whom is a leader in fields of vital importance to Microsoft Research and brings strong ties to the academic community of the New York metropolitan area.
The New York City lab will investigate complementary research areas: computational and experimental social science, algorithmic economics, and machine learning, along with information retrieval. The close collaboration of the two labs, and their interaction with the rest of Microsoft Research, is designed to extend state-of-the-art work in these key areas.
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