Portrait of Steven Drucker

Steven Drucker

Principal Researcher

Dr. Steven M. Drucker is a Principal Researcher in the Visual Interaction in Business and Entertainment (VIBE) group at Microsoft Research (MSR) focusing on human computer interaction for dealing with large amounts of information. In particular, he is exploring democratizing the process of understanding and explaining information through the creation of tools that facilitate discovery and communication of insights through natural interaction and storytelling techniques.

He is also an affiliate professor at the University of Washington Computer Science and Engineering Department. In the past he has been a Principal Scientist in the LiveLabs Research Group at Microsoft where he headed the Information Experiences Group working on user interaction and information visualization for web based projects; a Lead Researcher in the Next Media Research Group examining how the addition of user interaction transforms conventional media; and Lead Researcher in the Virtual Worlds Group creating a platform for multi-user virtual environments.

He has demonstrated his work on stage with Bill Gates at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES); with Satya Nadella for the CEO Summit, shipped software on the web and PowerBI for a compelling way to explore and present data, created a web service for gathering and acting on information collected on the web; was written up in the New York Times; filed over 108 patents; and published papers on technologies as diverse as exploratory search, information visualization, multi-user environments, online social interaction, hypermedia research, human and robot perceptual capabilities, robot learning, parallel computer graphics, spectator oriented gaming, and human interfaces for camera control.

Logan: Logfile Analysis

Established: October 12, 2015

Understanding Techniques and Tools for More Effective Telemetry and Log Data Analysis. Increasingly, business processes require data-driven real-time feedback based on large quantities of log data and customer telemetry from multiple sources. The Logan Project takes a broad approach to understanding the specific needs of consumers of telemetry and log data, focusing on giving them better support for extracting the data they need, cleaning it, and creating queries against it. To understand…

Tempe

Established: September 12, 2013

Tempe is a web service for exploratory data analysis. Below are images of the notebook pages mentioned in our submission to ICSE 2014.

Foveated 3D Display

Established: September 20, 2012

We exploit the falloff of visual acuity away from the gaze direction in the human visual system for dynamic 3D rendering. Through user studies, we have honed our system parameters and demonstrated the effectiveness of the system. We have also shown the system to bring significant performance increases, or equivalent reductions in hardware and power requirements, in typical 3D rendering applications on existing hardware. Finally, the method is easily integrated into existing 3D applications.

User Experience with Big Data

Established: May 24, 2012

Big data analytics requires new workflows: high latency queries, massively-parallel code, and cloud computing infrastructures all make handling a big dataset different (and harder) than working on a local machine. We are exploring user experiences for analysts, and thinking about new ways to deal with big datasets. BigDataUX: building a better user experience for Big Data. Lots of different definitions can be found for "big data," but they all have one aspect…

Cliplets: Juxtaposing Still and Dynamic Imagery

Established: March 6, 2012

What Are Cliplets?      Microsoft Research Cliplets is an interactive app that uses semi-automated methods to give users the power to create "Cliplets" - a type of imagery that sits between stills and video from handheld videos. The app provides a creative lens one can use to focus on important aspects of a moment by mixing static and dynamic elements from a video clip. Please see the BLINK and BLINK Cliplets page for more information about the…

SandDance

Established: November 10, 2011

Visually explore, understand, and present data SandDance is a web-based application that enables you to more easily explore, identify, and communicate insights about data. SandDance provides ease of use for data visualizations, pattern identification, trends, and insights. It provides better decision-making capabilities through its dynamic and customizable interface, allowing views of both aggregate and individual data. The app also supports and encourages collaboration, allowing multiple people to work with the same dataset. Furthermore,…

Visualization for Machine Teaching

Established: June 17, 2008

A large body of human-computer interaction research has focused on developing metaphors and tools that allow people to effectively issue commands and directly manipulate informational objects. However, with the advancement of computational techniques such as machine learning, we now have the unprecedented ability to embed 'smarts' that allow machines to assist and empower people in completing their tasks. We believe that there exists a computational design methodology which allows us to gracefully combine automated services with…

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Pixel based Interaction Techniques

September 28, 2016

Speakers

Christophe Hurter

Affiliation

The French Civil Aviation University (ENAC) in Toulouse, France

Transforming Education via Research

May 28, 2014

Speakers

Miguel Nussbaum, Siddharth Prakash, and Steven Drucker

Affiliation

Microsoft , Catholic University of Chile

Agavue Data Sample

August 2016

The attached zip file consists are a sample data release for AgaVue data. They are meant as a representative of real event log features –warts and all. We intend this set to be a useful standard set for users working on visualizations and models of logfiles. This data is copyright 2016 Microsoft Corporation, and is released under…

Before coming to Microsoft, Steven Drucker received his Ph.D. from the Computer Graphics and Animation Group at the MIT Media Lab in May 1994. His thesis research was on intelligent camera control interfaces for graphical environments. Dr. Drucker graduated Magna Cum Laude with Honors in Neurosciences from Brown University where he also worked with the Brown Graphics Group and went on to complete his masters at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT doing research in robot learning.

From 2006-2009, he was a Principal Scientist in the LiveLabs Resarch Group at Microsoft and heads the Information Experiences Group. He is working on user interaction and information visualization for web based projects. He is also an affiliate professor at the University of Washington Computer Science and Engineering Department. During his tenure at the group he has published papers on web interaction patterns, exploratory search, information visualization, and machine learning, as well as filing 34 patents.

From 1999-2006, he was the lead researcher for the Microsoft Research for 6 years where he examined how the addition of user interaction transforms conventional media. Particular interests included database visualization for consumers or where art meets technology for user interfaces. While in the group, he demonstrated some of his projects on stage with Bill Gates at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), was written up in the New York Times, filed 38 patents and published papers on technologies as diverse as remotely operated personal video recorders, spectator oriented gaming, and new visualization techniques for media databases.

From 1995-1999, he was the lead researcher in the Virtual Worlds Group also in Microsoft Research. During his time there he helped architect a platform for multi-user virtual environments, filed an additional 12 patents, and published papers in subjects ranging from architectures for multi-user, multimedia systems to online social interaction.

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