Rick Rashid
Rick Rashid is Senior Vice President for Research at Microsoft,
charged with oversight of Microsoft Research’s worldwide
operations. He previously served as Director of Microsoft Research,
focusing on operating systems, networking, and multiprocessors. In
that role he was responsible for managing work on key technologies
leading to the development of Microsoft Corp.’s interactive TV
system and authored a number of patents in areas such as data
compression, networking, and operating systems. In addition to running
Microsoft Research, Rashid was also instrumental in creating the team
that eventually became Microsoft’s Digital Media Division, as well
as directing Microsoft’s first e-commerce group. Rashid was
promoted to vice president of Microsoft Research in 1994, and then to
senior vice president in 2000.
Before joining Microsoft in September 1991, Rashid was Professor of
Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). After becoming a
CMU faculty member in September 1979, he directed the design and
implementation of several seminal network operating systems and
published dozens of papers about computer vision, operating systems,
programming languages for distributed processing, network protocols,
and communications security. During his tenure at CMU, Rashid
developed the Mach multiprocessor operating system, which has been
influential in the design of many modern operating systems and remains
at the core of a number of commercial systems. Rashid was inducted
into the National Academy of Engineering in 2003 for his work in
operating systems and for innovation in industrial research.
Rashid's research interests have focused on artificial intelligence,
operating systems, networking and multiprocessors. He has participated
in the design and implementation of the University of Rochester RIG
operating system (1975-1979), the Rochester Virtual Terminal
Management System (1976-1979), the CMU Distributed Sensor Network
Testbed (1980-1983) and CMU's SPICE distributed personal computing
environment, which included the Accent network operating system
(1981-1985). He has published papers on computer vision, operating
systems, programming languages for distributed processing, network
protocols and communication security.
He also is credited with co-development of one of the earliest
networked computer games, "Alto Trek," during the mid-1970s. An
updated version of this game has been developed by Microsoft and has
been released under the name "Allegiance."
Rashid is a member of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer
Directorate Advisory Committee. He is a past member of the DARPA UNIX
Steering Committee and the CSNet Executive Committee and a former
chairman of the ACM Software System Awards Committee. He serves as
Microsoft's executive sponsor for the MIT/Microsoft iCampus Research
Alliance in Educational Technology.
Rashid received his Master of Science (1977) and doctoral (1980) degrees
in computer science from the University of Rochester. He graduated
with honors in mathematics and comparative literature from Stanford
University in 1974.