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.
