Tony Hey
PopTech 2009
As Corporate Vice President of the External Research Division of Microsoft Research, Tony Hey is responsible for building public-private partnerships with global scientific and engineering communities across research institutions, government agencies, and industry partners worldwide. Hey works with the worldwide research community and internal Microsoft groups to build future technologies to transform data into knowledge. Multi-disciplinary collaboration toward a common goal of a better life for humanity is key. The work includes Microsoft Research’s efforts to enhance the quality of higher education around the globe.
Before joining Microsoft, Hey served as director of the U.K.’s e-Science Initiative, managing government efforts to provide scientists and researchers with access to key computing technologies. Before that, Hey worked at the University of Southampton, serving as Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science as well as Dean of Engineering and Applied Science. He co-wrote the first draft of a specification for the message-passing standard called MPI. In addition to technical work, he has also reached out to young, general-interest readers by authoring books on physics that aim to make difficult science accessible, even exciting.
Watch Tony Hey’s talk at PopTech 2009