In “Just Tech: Centering Community-Driven Innovation at the Margins,” Senior Principal Researcher Mary Gray explores how technology and community intertwine and the role technology can play in supporting community-driven innovation and community-based organizations. Dr. Gray and her team are working to bring computer science, engineering, social science, and community together to boost societal resilience in ongoing work with Project Resolve . She’ll talk with organizers, academics, technology l...
Mar 23, 2022•55 min
For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote...
Aug 12, 2021•24 min
For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote...
Aug 04, 2021•23 min
For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote...
Jul 29, 2021•21 min
Unlocking the challenge of molecular simulation has the potential to yield significant breakthroughs in how we tackle such societal issues as climate change, drug discovery, and the treatment of disease, and Microsoft is ramping up its efforts in the space. In this episode, Chris Bishop , Lab Director of Microsoft Research Cambridge, welcomes renowned machine learning researcher Max Welling to the Microsoft Research team as head of the new Amsterdam lab. Connecting over their shared physics back...
Jul 20, 2021•21 min
For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote...
Jul 14, 2021•26 min
For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote...
Jul 07, 2021•20 min
For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote...
Jun 30, 2021•28 min
For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote...
Jun 24, 2021•33 min
In the world of economics, researchers at Microsoft are examining a range of complex systems—from those that impact the technologies we use to those that inform the laws and policies we create—through the lens of a social science that goes beyond the numbers to better understand people and society. In this episode, Senior Principal Researcher Hunt Allcott talks with Postdoctoral Researcher Evan Rose about Allcott’s work exploring the everyday decisions people face, like buying fuel-efficient car...
Jun 16, 2021•57 min
In the world of economics, researchers at Microsoft are examining a range of complex systems—from those that impact the technologies we use to those that inform the laws and policies we create—through the lens of a social science that goes beyond the numbers to better understand people and society. Interviewed by Senior Principal Researcher Hunt Allcott , Economist David Rothschild discusses how the news media has evolved alongside social media and the internet, from story development to distrib...
Jun 10, 2021•54 min
In the world of economics, researchers at Microsoft are examining a range of complex systems—from those that impact the technologies we use to those that inform the laws and policies we create—through the lens of a social science that goes beyond the numbers to better understand people and society. In this episode, Senior Principal Researcher Dr. Hunt Allcott speaks with Microsoft Research New England office mate and Senior Principal Researcher Dr. Greg Lewis . Together, they cover the connectio...
Jun 02, 2021•1 hr
In the world of economics, researchers at Microsoft are examining a range of complex systems—from those that impact the technologies we use to those that inform the laws and policies we create—through the lens of a social science that goes beyond the numbers to better understand people and society. In this episode, Dr. Hunt Allcott, Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England, talks with Dr. Evan Rose, Postdoctoral Researcher, whom Allcott describes as “one of the most engaging...
May 19, 2021•44 min
Today, people around the globe—from teachers to small-business owners to finance executives—use Microsoft Excel to make sense of the information that occupies their respective worlds, and whether they realize it or not, in doing so, they’re taking on the role of programmer. In this episode, Senior Principal Research Manager Andy Gordon, who leads the Calc Intelligence team at Microsoft Research, and Senior Principal Researcher Simon Peyton Jones provide an inside account of the journey Excel has...
May 05, 2021•40 min
Dynamic random-access memory – or DRAM – is the most popular form of volatile computer memory in the world but it’s particularly susceptible to Rowhammer, an adversarial attack that can cause data loss and security exploits in everything from smart phones to the cloud. Today, Dr. Stefan Saroiu, a Senior Principal Researcher in MSR’s Mobility and Networking group, explains why DRAM remains vulnerable to Rowhammer attacks today, even after several years of mitigation efforts, and then tells us how...
Jul 08, 2020•38 min
Many computer science researchers set their sights on building general AI technologies that could impact hundreds of millions – or even billions – of people. But Dr. Danielle Bragg, a senior researcher at MSR’s New England lab, has a slightly smaller and more specific population in mind: the some seventy million people worldwide who use sign languages as their primary means of communication. Today, Dr. Bragg gives us an insightful overview of the field and talks about the unique challenges and o...
Jun 17, 2020•43 min
MSR’s New York City lab is home to some of the best reinforcement learning research on the planet but if you ask any of the researchers, they’ll tell you they’re very interested in getting it out of the lab and into the real world. One of those researchers is Dr. Akshay Krishnamurthy and today, he explains how his work on feedback-driven data collection and provably efficient reinforcement learning algorithms is helping to move the RL needle in the real-world direction. https://www.microsoft.com...
Jun 03, 2020•39 min
Dr. Siddhartha Sen is a Principal Researcher in MSR’s New York City lab, and his research interests are, if not impossible, at least impossible sounding: optimal decision making, universal data structures, and verifiably safe AI. Today, he tells us how he’s using reinforcement learning and HAIbrid algorithms to tap the best of both human and machine intelligence and develop AI that’s minimally disruptive, synergistic with human solutions, and safe.
May 27, 2020
This episode originally aired in August, 2018. Kevin Scott has embraced many roles over the course of his illustrious career in technology: software developer, engineering executive, researcher, angel investor, philanthropist, and now, Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft. But perhaps no role suits him so well – or has so fundamentally shaped all the others – as his self-described role of “all-around geek.” Today, in a wide-ranging interview, Kevin shares his insights on both the history and th...
May 20, 2020
Dr. Devon Hjelm is a senior researcher at the Microsoft Research lab in Montreal, and today, he joins me to dive deep into his research on Deep InfoMax, a novel self-supervised learning approach to training AI models – and getting good representations – without human annotation. He also tells us how an interest in neural networks, first human and then machine, led to an inspiring career in deep learning research. https://www.microsoft.com/research
May 13, 2020
This episode originally aired in June, 2019 You may not know who Dr. Andrew Fitzgibbon is, but if you’ve watched a TV show or movie in the last two decades, you’ve probably seen some of his work. An expert in 3D computer vision and graphics, and head of the new All Data AI group at Microsoft Research Cambridge, Dr. Fitzgibbon was instrumental in the development of Boujou, an Emmy Award-winning 3D camera tracker that lets filmmakers place virtual props, like the floating candles in Hogwarts Schoo...
May 06, 2020
This episode originally aired in April, 2018 Emotions are fundamental to human interaction, but in a world where humans are increasingly interacting with AI systems, Dr. Mary Czerwinski, Principal Researcher and Research Manager of the Visualization and Interaction for Business and Entertainment group at Microsoft Research, believes emotions may be fundamental to our interactions with machines as well. And through her team’s work in affective computing, the quest to bring Artificial Emotional In...
Apr 29, 2020
This episode originally aired in April, 2019. We hear a lot these days about “AI for good” and the efforts of many companies to harness the power of artificial intelligence to solve some of our biggest environmental challenges. It’s rare, however, that you find a company willing to bring its environmental bona fides all the way to the C Suite. Well, meet Dr. Lucas Joppa . A former environmental and computer science researcher at MSR who was tapped in 2017 to become the company’s first Chief Envi...
Apr 22, 2020
This episode originally aired in December, 2017 On today’s episode, neuroscientist and virtual reality researcher, Dr. Mar Gonzalez Franco, talks about her work in VR, explains how avatars can help increase our empathy and reduce our biases via role play, and addresses the misconceptions that exist between the immersive experiences of virtual reality and psychedelic drugs.
Apr 15, 2020
Forty years ago, database research was an “exotic” field and, because of its business data processing reputation, was not considered intellectually interesting in academic circles. But that didn’t deter Dr. Philip Bernstein, now a Distinguished Scientist in MSR’s Data Management, Exploration and Mining group, and a pioneer in the field. Today, Dr. Bernstein talks about his pioneering work in databases over the years and tells us all about Project Orleans, a distributed systems programming framew...
Apr 08, 2020
Brad Smith is the President of Microsoft and leads a team of more than 1400 employees in 56 countries. He plays a key role in spearheading the company’s work on critical issues involving the intersection of technology and society. In his spare time, he’s also an author! We were fortunate to catch up with Brad who, late on a Friday afternoon, sat down with me in the booth to talk about his new book, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age, and revealed the top ten tech pol...
Apr 01, 2020
Rangan Majumder is the Partner Group Program Manager of Microsoft’s Search and AI, and he has a simple goal: to make the world smarter and more productive. But nobody said simple was easy, so he and his team are working on better – and faster – ways to help you find the information you’re looking for, anywhere you’re looking for it. Today, Rangan talks about how three big trends have changed the way Microsoft is building – and sharing – AI stacks across product groups. He also tells us about Pro...
Mar 25, 2020
Dr. Behnaz Arzani is a senior researcher in the Mobility and Networking group at MSR, and she feels your pain. At least, that is, if you’re a network operator trying to troubleshoot an incident in a datacenter. Her research is all about getting networks to manage themselves, so your life is as pain-free as possible. On today’s podcast, Dr. Arzani tells us why it’s so hard to identify and resolve networking problems and then explains how content-aware, or domain-customized, auto ML frameworks mig...
Mar 18, 2020
If you want an inside look at how a research idea goes from project to prototype to product, you should hang out with Gavin Jancke for a while. He’s the General Manager of Engineering for MSR Redmond where he created – and runs – the Central Engineering Group. Over the past two decades, he’s overseen more than seven hundred software and hardware engineering projects, from internal MSR innovations to Microsoft product group partnerships. Today, Gavin takes us on a guided tour of the research engi...
Mar 11, 2020
Over the past decade, the healthcare industry has undergone a series of technological changes in an effort to modernize it and bring it into the digital world, but the call for innovation persists. One person answering that call is Dr. Peter Lee, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Healthcare, a new organization dedicated to accelerating healthcare innovation through AI and cloud computing. Today, Dr. Lee talks about how MSR’s advances in healthcare technology are impacting the business of Mic...
Mar 04, 2020
