ACM TechNews

Microsoft Research Lab Opens Quietly Next to MIT

Xconomy (07/29/08) Buderi, Robert

Microsoft's new research lab in Kendall Square in Cambridge, Mass., is the company's first research outpost in the United States not on the Web Coast and its sixth research facility worldwide. Already a small group of renowned mathematicians, economists, and computer scientists have joined the lab, which has also reached a partnership agreement with MIT. The lab's managing director, mathematician Jennifer Chayes, says the reception illustrates the latent computer science potential in the region. Chayes says the lab's scientists have created a mini-intellectual frenzy around some of the topics being researched at the lab, which, like other Microsoft Research labs, will be published in open literature in an effort to emulate academic institutions. Chayes and fellow lab member and husband Christian Borgs, the lab's deputy managing director, have identified four core areas of focus: computer science theory and mathematics, economics, social science, and design. Chayes and Borgs expect to build the social sciences and design work quickly because they feel the convergence of these fields creates tremendously interesting and potentially valuable areas for study. The lab has already established agreements to hold joint seminars or symposia with MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems.

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