Yahoo! Opens East Coast Research Center; Appoints Dr. Ron Brachman as Vice President of Worldwide Research Operations

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today announced that it has established a research center on the East Coast and has appointed Dr. Ron Brachman as vice president of worldwide research operations. Brachman, who joins Yahoo! from DARPA and AT&T Labs, will be based at Yahoo!’s newly-opened research center in New York City. The center will focus on key technologies in the areas of computer science and social media relevant to Yahoo!’s products and services.

Brachman is the latest in a series of personnel announcements from Yahoo! Research, following Dr. Andrei Broder’s recent appointment as vice president of emerging search, and underscoring Yahoo!’s dedication to attracting the best minds in computer science research. Brachman will report directly to Prabhakar Raghavan, Head of Yahoo! Research.

“Ron will play a key role in this expansion as he helps establish Yahoo! Research’s presence on the East Coast and beyond.”

“As Yahoo! Research continues to grow its ranks and expand geographically, we continue to seek top researchers to join us,” said Raghavan. “Ron will play a key role in this expansion as he helps establish Yahoo! Research’s presence on the East Coast and beyond.”

Brachman has had a distinguished career as a scientist and senior executive, marked by many significant accomplishments and honors. His expertise and experience will play a crucial role in expanding Yahoo! Research globally. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Brachman served as the director of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO), and there developed IPTO’s Cognitive Systems initiative, which brought hundreds of millions of dollars to the national research community. Prior to his term at DARPA, Brachman was a Research Vice President at AT&T Labs where he developed a world-class artificial intelligence group. He recently completed a two-year term as President of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and is a Fellow of AAAI and of the Association for Computing Machinery.

“Yahoo! tackles and solves some of the hardest technical challenges in the Internet world at a massive scale,” said Brachman. “I look forward to helping build a world-class research organization focused on exciting problems that only a company like Yahoo! can address with its array of products and services and its reach to more than 400 million consumers around the world.”

Brachman earned his B.S.E.E. degree from Princeton University, and his S.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. He has made many key contributions to the area of knowledge representation, including a recent textbook he co-authored with Hector Levesque, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning.

“The presence of Yahoo! Research on the East Coast will greatly benefit the research community,” said Prof. Zvi Galil, Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Professor and Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University. “We look forward to Yahoo!’s close proximity to our campus and the potential to work with distinguished researchers and scientists like Ron Brachman who have made seminal contributions to the scientific community.”

“We recognize the need to seek and attract the top research talent in the world wherever it happens to be concentrated,” stated Usama Fayyad, Chief Data Officer and Senior Vice President responsible for overall Research investment at Yahoo!. “We look forward to building a great research organization in New York to tap into the highly qualified talent pool on the East Coast. We are extremely fortunate to have someone with Ron’s outstanding scientific reputation to help us build a global research organization aimed at inventing the new sciences around search and information navigation, interactive media and on-line communities as well as the new economics driven by new business models for publishers, advertisers, and consumers.”


About Yahoo! Research

Yahoo! Research works on developing the world-class science that will deliver the next generation of businesses to the company. Yahoo! Research scientists study data-driven analysis, high-quality search, algorithms and economic models. Yahoo! manages many of the largest and richest data repositories in the world, and researchers mine insights from these giant collections, individually and collectively, maintaining the privacy of our users while setting new standards for user value. Yahoo! Research has facilities in Sunnyvale, Burbank and Berkeley, California and in New York City.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! seeks to provide online products and services essential to users’ 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, California.

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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