Posted by Lili Cheng, managing director of FUSE Labs

The latest in a series of posts from the directors of Microsoft Research’s labs worldwide, this one from Lili Cheng of FUSE Labs.

We just launched So.cl, our latest research experiment, which blends search and social networking. For the last 12 days, it has been a thrill to be amid a network of students and to learn how human and unpredictable and beautiful it is to build and interact with a new community.

Posted by Surajit Chaudhuri, managing director of the eXtreme Computing Group

The latest in a series of posts from the directors of Microsoft Research’s labs worldwide, this one from Surajit Chaudhuri of the eXtreme Computing Group (XCG).

It has been just more than six months since I joined XCG as its lab director. XCG is a unique Microsoft Research lab that consists of not only great researchers and program managers, as in other Microsoft Research labs, but also a relatively large and experienced engineering team. This combination of talent has created a culture in XCG to focus on big bets, as we also have the ability to make significant engineering investments

Posted by Rob Knies

Each year, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) recognizes several of its members for their contributions to computing by naming them as Fellows. Today, 46 ACM members have been named as Fellows—and six of them are from Microsoft Research, representing four different labs worldwide.

The press release for the announcement states that Microsoft Research’s new ACM Fellows have been recognized for achievements in software analysis, computer graphics, reasoning and decision-making, network control, and distributed computing.

Posted by Rob Knies

The world is awash in scientific data these days, but all that information is not being harnessed to its potential to help steer the planet to a more sustainable future.

That’s the message Stephen Emmott, head of the Computational Science Laboratory at Microsoft Research Cambridge, will deliver Dec. 14 during the Eye on Earth Summit, being held Dec. 12-15 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre.

Emmott and colleague Lucas Joppa, a scientist in the Computational Ecology and Environmental Science team within the Computational Science group, will be previewing prototype models and related tools, which they hope in the future will enable people to find, generate, contribute, and share environmental data, information, understanding, and predictions.

Posted by Rob Knies

A couple of weeks ago, Ed Cutrell, research manager of the Technology for Emerging Markets group at Microsoft Research India, was announced as the latest member of the advisory board of the International Institute for Software Technology (IIST) at United Nations University (UNU).

The mission of the institute, headed by Peter Haddawy, senior scientist in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is to further the development and application of information and communication technology to address the pressing global challenges of sustainable development though education, research, capacity development, and policy support.

Having been unaware of the institute—and, indeed, of the existence of United Nations University, the academic arm of the United Nations—I was intrigued, so I contacted Cutrell to learn more. How, for example, did he get involved with the institute?