Yahoo! Appoints Dr. Prabhakar Raghavan to Lead Research Efforts; Renowned Scientist Named Head of Yahoo! Research

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today announced the appointment of Dr. Prabhakar Raghavan to Head of Yahoo! Research. Raghavan will lead research efforts to address complex challenges in key areas for Yahoo!, including search and information navigation, social media, community, personalization, and mobility. Raghavan will report to Chief Data Officer and Senior Vice President Dr. Usama Fayyad, and he will be based in Sunnyvale, Calif., effective immediately. Yahoo! Research includes facilities in Berkeley, Pasadena and Sunnyvale.

“The appointment of Prabhakar into this key role at Yahoo! indicates the significant degree of importance Yahoo! is placing on research,” said Terry Semel, chief executive officer of Yahoo!. “Prabhakar is highly accomplished and respected in the research community, and we look forward to continuing to expand our research efforts to build the technical and scientific foundation we need to ensure the best possible experience for our users on the Internet.”

“The appointment of Prabhakar into this key role at Yahoo! indicates the significant degree of importance Yahoo! is placing on research”

“My goal for Yahoo! Research is to continue to attract preeminent scientists from around the world to help discover new technologies that will enhance Yahoo services that will change the lives of hundreds of millions of users around the globe,” said Raghavan. “Yahoo!’s vast network offers opportunities for scientists and research that few companies in the world can offer.”

Raghavan is currently editor-in-chief of the “Journal of the ACM,” a prestigious peer-reviewed journal published by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) that provides coverage of the most significant work happening in computer science. Additionally, he is a consulting professor of computer science at Stanford University, and has also taught at Yale. He has been inducted as a Fellow of both the ACM and IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).

Prior to joining Yahoo!, Raghavan was senior vice president and chief technology officer of Verity, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise search software that enables organizations to discover, analyze and process all of the digital information within their enterprises. Prior to Verity, he worked for 14 years in a variety of technical and managerial positions at IBM, including head of the Computer Science Principles (CSP) department at IBM’s Almaden Research Center.

“Prabhakar’s extensive experience in search and text mining and in pioneering valuable technologies for the Web will help further Yahoo!’s commitment to scientific research, innovation and invention,” said Fayyad. “Our goal is to build the world’s strongest research organization to establish new sciences and provide global thought leadership in areas that are core for Yahoo! and for how consumers use interactive media, including, among others, Information Navigation, Social Media, Mobility, and online communities.”

Raghavan is the author of a well known textbook on algorithms, titled “Randomized Algorithms,” and has published over 100 papers in various fields including algorithms, optimization, Web search and databases. Raghavan also holds over a dozen patents, including several on link analysis for web search.

Raghavan holds a Ph.D from the University of California at Berkeley and an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from IIT in Madras, India.

For additional information on Yahoo! Research, please visit: http://research.yahoo.com/


About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading Internet brand globally and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! seeks to provide online products and services essential to consumers’ lives, and offers a full range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with Internet users around the world. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Yahoo! and the Yahoo! logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc.

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Source: Business Wire /PDF

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