As senior vice president, Rick Rashid oversees worldwide operations for Microsoft Research, an organization encompassing more than 800 researchers across six labs worldwide. Under Rick's leadership, Microsoft Research conducts both basic and applied research across disciplines that include algorithms and theory; human-computer interaction; machine learning; multimedia and graphics; search; security; social computing; and systems, architecture, mobility and networking. His team collaborates with the world's foremost researchers in academia, industry and government on initiatives to advance the state-of-the-art of computing and to help ensure the future of Microsoft's products.
Before joining Microsoft, Rick was professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. As a faculty member, he directed the design and implementation of several influential network operating systems and published extensively about computer vision, operating systems, network protocols and communications security. During his tenure, Rick developed the Mach multiprocessor operating system, which has been influential in the design of modern operating systems and remains at the core of several commercial systems.
Rick was presented with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Emanuel R. Piore Award in 2008 and inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2003. He was also inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2008. Rick is a board member of the Anita Borg Institute of Women and Technology, and a past member of the National Science Foundation Computer Directorate Advisory Committee and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency UNIX Steering Committee and the Computer Science Network Executive Committee. He is also a former chairman of the Association for Computing Machinery Software System Awards Committee.
My favorite toy growing up:
My favorite toy was an erector set (the old metal kind with screws and such). I remember getting it on Christmas morning one year and before my parents had woken up I had built a robot that I proudly had roll into their bedroom. I also remember having the robot "walk" to school with me for "show and tell".
The engineer or technologist who inspired me most:
Alan Newell. Alan provided me some of the best personal and professional advice I ever received and his attitudes and approach to building and managing research have been an inspiration to me.
The contribution for which I most want to be remembered:
This would be a tie between my work on the Mach OS and the creation of Microsoft Research.
What I value in a technical collaborator:
I really value someone who has the ability to surprise with off-beat ideas and has a good sense of humor. I find people with a good sense of humor are really great at brainstorming.
What I wish I had invented:
Teleportation. My life would be so much better...
How I define beauty in engineering:
For me, beauty in engineering is when you can create a complex system that is built on the smallest number of key ideas.
My favorite quotation:
"No matter where you go... there you are" (From "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension")
My favorite book or movie:
Book: Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson
My favorite fictional hero or heroine:
Buckaroo Banzai
My favorite hobby, sport, or pastime:
Horseback riding with my family.
A talent I wish I had:
Any artistic talent at all. I draw stick figures...
Something few people know about me:
Growing up, I always wanted to be an astronaut.
Something that makes me laugh:
A good pun works best for me. I love any kind of clever play on words.
My favorite source of technology news:
The Internet is where I go to find out news and information. I love the fact that I can get really up-to-the-minute news, but also that I can use it to fact-check and correlate things I read, so I don't have to take any one single source as the truth.
What I appreciate most in a computer system:
A computer system should feel like a natural extension of yourself and not some bureaucrat getting in your way.
My first experience with parallel computing:
Microprogramming the Xerox Alto in the 1970s.
The most important problem to solve for multicore software:
Building the tools that will allow us to analyze and prove properties of large parallel systems. Without such tools we will never be able to build the kind of complex systems we will need to create for the future and have any confidence that they will consistently work according to our specifications.
My worst fear about how multicore technology might evolve:
My biggest fear is that we will simply treat multicore systems as big stunt boxes that do specific parallel algorithms that are then lashed together by serial code.
What computer-science students should learn that their professors don't teach them:
Not to blindly trust what they read in the literature or text books or learn from their professor...
My dream about the future of computing:
Every device I use should know about me and my preferences and the tasks I need to perform and be linked together to provide a seamless experience.
A question I wish had been on the list, and my answer:
What worries you the most?
It worries me that so many people (especially in Industry but even in Academia) misunderstand the reasons for investing in long term basic research. Most often people equate basic research with its outcomes, especially the new technologies and products it creates and then they try to manage it like they would product development or a business with disastrous consequences.
To my mind, the reason for investing in basic research is to increase your chances of survival during periods of intense change. New ideas, technologies and products are the happy by-products of research in good times. In bad times, having a significant basic research asset allows a company or society to more rapidly adapt, compete and change. Basic research is all about "agility".