Categories: MicrosoftPersonalScienceTechnology

Rest in Peace Jim Gray

Jim Gray (1944-2012).

Here’s to a wonderful human being, an amazing scientist, and a great role model. I am so honored to have known, have worked with, and have had him as a mentor in Microsoft. Jim was the one who advised me to move to the US and join Don Box’s group. He mentored me while in Microsoft and advised me to transition to Tony Hey‘s group, where I had a blast. I was getting ready to move to the San Francisco Microsoft Research lab to work directly under Jim when he disappeared, in January of 2007.

His contributions to Computer Science are unparalleled! His interaction style and ability to make you feel special were unique.

From the NY Times Bits: “Closure in Disappearance of Computer Scientist“

Savas Parastatidis

Savas Parastatidis works at Amazon as a Sr. Principal Engineer in Alexa AI'. Previously, he worked at Microsoft where he co-founded Cortana and led the effort as the team's architect. While at Microsoft, Savas also worked on distributed data storage and high-performance data processing technologies. He was involved in various e-Science projects while at Microsoft Research where he also investigated technologies related to knowledge representation & reasoning. Savas also worked on language understanding technologies at Facebook. Prior to joining Microsoft, Savas was a Principal Research Associate at Newcastle University where he undertook research in the areas of distributed, service-oriented computing and e-Science. He was also the Chief Software Architect at the North-East Regional e-Science Centre where he oversaw the architecture and the application of Web Services technologies for a number of large research projects. Savas worked as a Senior Software Engineer for Hewlett Packard where he co-lead the R&D effort for the industry's Web Service transactions service and protocol. You can find out more about Savas at https://savas.me/about