Microsoft Research chief will keynote School of Informatics and Computing inauguration ceremonies
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
INDIANAPOLIS and BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Ceremonies inaugurating the launch of Indiana University’s newly merged School of Informatics and School of Library and Information Science will be highlighted by comments from Microsoft Corporate Vice President Peter Lee, head of Microsoft Research -- an organization encompassing more than 1,100 scientists and engineers across 13 labs worldwide.
Lee will speak at 3 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27, at IU Bloomington’s Whittenberger Auditorium as the guest of IU President Michael A. McRobbie and IU School of Informatics and Computing Dean Bobby Schnabel. Anyone wishing to attend either the Bloomington event or a 2 p.m. live ceremony the same day at the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis campus featuring IU Health President and CEO Daniel F. Evans Jr. are encouraged to RSVP by Friday, Sept. 20.
A live stream of the IU Bloomington ceremony and Lee’s comments will be offered at the IUPUI event, taking place at the Informatics and Communications Technology Complex Auditorium.
“Peter Lee is one of the foremost leaders and visionaries in the computer science community and draws on extensive experience from a distinguished academic career, government service and now as the leader of Microsoft Research,” Schnabel said. “I am delighted that the IU community and our friends will have the opportunity to hear him discuss his vision for the future of computing.”
Lee joined Microsoft in 2008 as distinguished scientist and managing director of the Microsoft Research Redmond Lab. He later took on leadership of Microsoft’s U.S.-based research operations, comprising seven laboratories and over 500 researchers, engineers and support personnel.
Before joining Microsoft, Lee held key positions in both government and academia. His most recent position was at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where he founded and directed a major technology office that supported research in computing and related areas in the social and physical sciences. Before DARPA, Lee served as head of Carnegie Mellon University's nationally top-ranked computer science department.
The live event at IUPUI, according to Executive Associate Dean Mathew J. Palakal, will provide guests an opportunity to hear Evans talk about the intertwined relationship between technology and health care.
“Indiana is ranked as one of the five states leading the nation in the health and life sciences, and IU Health is a cornerstone of Indiana’s position,” Palakal said. “As the president and CEO of IU Health, Dan Evans is providing the vision and direction that Indiana needs to lead the way in health care innovation. Informatics and information technology play an important role in the transformation of health care delivery. We are pleased to have Dan Evans here to share his insight about the evolution of informatics in health care.”
The two schools officially merged July 1, creating the School of Informatics and Computing on both campuses and offering the expanded breadth, size and quality designed to address the rapid expansion of informatics, computing and libraries.
Before the merger, the School of Library and Information Science was consistently among the top 10 (eighth in the 2013 rankings) in the U.S. News and World Report rankings. An outside analysis of information and library science journals found IU second, behind Harvard University, in the impact of its publications.
The School of Informatics, the first of its kind in the country, was founded as a school in 2000 and introduced the nation's first Ph.D. in informatics; IU’s longstanding Computer Science Department joined the school in Bloomington in 2005. The school is an international research leader in areas including bioinformatics, complex networks and systems, cyber-infrastructure, data and search, human-computer interaction, networks and systems, programming languages, social informatics, and security and privacy.
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