Rico Malvar
Distinguished Engineer
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Rico Malvar is a Distinguished Engineer working as the Managing Director for Microsoft Research in Redmond. Previously, Malvar was a founding member of the Signal Processing research group at Microsoft Research, which evolved into the Communication and Collaboration Systems group and the Knowledge Tools group. These groups have contributed strongly to Microsoft’s products, from the development of novel architectures to shipping code. His technical contributions at Microsoft include co-development of audio coding and digital rights management technologies for Windows Media, and co-development of image and ink compression formats for Microsoft Office and Tablet PC.
His technical interests include audio and video signal enhancement and compression, multirate signal processing, signal decompositions (filter banks, transforms, wavelets, etc.), fast algorithms, coding theory, and electronics hardware. In these areas and others he has authored or co-authored over 60 issued patents, with more pending.
Before coming to Microsoft, Malvar was a vice president for Research and Advanced Technology at PictureTel Corp., which was later acquired by Polycom. He was a Professor at University of Brasilia, Brazil before going to PictureTel Corp.
Malvar received a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986. Among other distinctions, he is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and he received the Technical Achievement Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society in 2002, and the Yong Scientist Award from the Marconi International Fellowship in 1981.
Malvar is a “carioca,” which means he was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
