We're thrilled to announce that Dr. Gary William Flake has joined the Microsoft as a Distinguished Engineer; Dr. Flake is the first person outside the company to be hired as a distinguished engineer (DE).

Dr. Flake comes from Yahoo where he led their research and development efforts, focusing on creating the next generation of Web search.  At Microsoft he'll be responsible for bridging the innovation happening between Microsoft Research and MSN and for setting the technology vision and future direction of the MSN portal, web search, desktop search and monetization engine.

Here's the short bio from his homepage:
Dr. Flake joined Yahoo! with the acquisition of Overture in 2003 to lead Yahoo!s research and development efforts, focusing on creating the next generation of Web search. Prior to joining Overture, he was a research scientist at NEC Research Institute and the leader of its Web data-mining program. He has numerous publications spanning over 15 years which have focused on machine learning, data mining, and self-organization. His other research interests include Web measurements, efficient algorithms, models of adaptation inspired by nature, and time series forecasting.
Dr. Flake has served on numerous academic conference and workshop organization committees and is a member of the editorial board for the Association for Computing Machinery's Transactions on Internet Technologies. Dr. Flake, who earned his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park, also wrote the award-winning book, The Computational Beauty of Nature, which is used in college courses worldwide.

And here are a few links for further reference:
Gary’s Yahoo Bio
Gary’s Yahoo homepage

Gary starts work on MSN Search at the end of June.  We're extremely happy to have him on board!

Oshoma Momoh
General Manager, MSN Search Program Management