Steven Drucker

Dr. Steven M. Drucker is a Principal Researcher and manager of the Visualization and Interactive Data Analysis (VIDA) 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 120 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.

He received his Ph.D from the MIT Media Lab on automatic camera control and navigation in virtual environments, an MS from the AI Laboratory at MIT on robot learning and an ScB from Brown University in Neurosciences.