Microsoft Research Award Goes to Jeff Dozier

Congratulations are in order to Jeff Dozier, this year's recipient of the annual Jim Gray eScience Award, presented by Microsoft Research. Dozier, who is a professor of environmental science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been granted the award for his work combining environmental science with computer science to bring a new level of understanding to climate change and its impact on our planet’s water resources.

Ironically, much of Professor Dozier's work has focused on snow hydrology, not necessarily a topic that springs to mind when thinking about Southern California. But then, much of that region does get its water from the Sierra Nevada range. Of particular interest to Microsoft Research, however, is the work Dozier has done in the use of remote sensing technology to track water in mountainous drainage basins.

As you might imagine, this involves data -- and lots of it -- which led him to crossing-paths with Jim Gray.

"I was interested in dealing with lots of data, and of course he was interested and incredibly knowledgeable about computing technology and databases and what he saw as their future," Dozier says. "So we had a very fruitful collaboration."

Over the years, Dozier has found time to write more than 20 books and monographs, and more than 100 technical articles, many of which focus on remote sensing and information systems. He also co-authored (with Microsoft's William Gail) the article The Emerging Science of Environmental Applications, which appears in The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery, published by Microsoft Research and available here.

Again, congratulations to Professor Dozier for a justly deserved award.

-- Jonathan Erickson
jerickson@ddj.com

Posted by Jon Erickson at 01:50 PM  Permalink