Richard Farris Rashid is the founder of

Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...

, which he created in 1991. Between 1991 and 2013, as its chief research officer and director, he oversaw the worldwide operations for Microsoft Research which grew to encompass more than 850 researchers and a dozen labs around the world.

Biography

Rashid was born in

Fort Madison, Iowa Fort Madison is a city in and a county seat of Lee County, Iowa, United States along with Keokuk. Of Iowa's 99 counties, Lee County is the only one with two county seats. The population was 10,270 at the time of the 2020 census. Located alon ...

, and is the son of Farris Rashid and Ramona Wright Rashid. Rashid graduated from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 1974 with degrees in

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and

comparative literature Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...

. He then received a

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

from the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

, finishing in 1980. While at Rochester, he and

Gene Ball Gene Ball is a computer science researcher and computer programmer. Ball obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Oklahoma, and attended graduate school at the University of Rochester, completing a master's degree and finishing his doct ...

wrote what is probably one of the earliest networked multiplayer computer games, ''

Alto Trek ''Alto Trek'' is a computer game, developed by Gene Ball and Rick Rashid for the Xerox Alto while they were graduate students at the University of Rochester during the late 1970s. It is one of the first computer networking, networked multiplayer ...

'', for

Xerox Alto The Xerox Alto is a computer system developed at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) in the 1970s. It is considered one of the first workstations or personal computers, and its development pioneered many aspects of modern computing. It featu ...

computers. Before joining Microsoft in 1991, Rashid had been the developer of the

Mach kernel Mach () is an operating system kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University by Richard Rashid and Avie Tevanian to support operating system research, primarily distributed and parallel computing. Mach is often considered one of the earliest ...

during his tenure as a professor of

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

. The Mach multiprocessor operating system

kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learnin ...

developed by Rashid has had a lasting influence in the design of modern

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s, including the design of

Windows NT Windows NT is a Proprietary software, proprietary Graphical user interface, graphical operating system produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows product line, the first version of which, Windows NT 3.1, was released on July 27, 1993. Original ...

, and remains at the core of several operating systems such as

NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT, founded by Steve Jobs, in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its ...

GNU Hurd GNU Hurd is a collection of microkernel servers written as part of GNU, for the GNU Mach microkernel. It has been under development since 1990 by the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation, designed as a replacement for the Unix kernel, an ...

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

OSF/1 OSF/1 is a variant of the Unix operating system developed by the Open Software Foundation during the late 1980s and early 1990s. OSF/1 is one of the first operating systems to have used the Mach kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University, and ...

, and

Tru64 UNIX Tru64 UNIX is a discontinued 64-bit UNIX operating system for the DEC Alpha, Alpha instruction set architecture (ISA), currently owned by Hewlett-Packard (HP). Previously, Tru64 UNIX was a product of Compaq, and before that, Digital Equipment Corp ...

. Rashid's Mach kernel pioneered the concepts of

microkernel In computer science, a microkernel (often abbreviated as μ-kernel) is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system (OS). These mechanisms include low-level address space management, ...

architecture and its impact can be traced in today's computing landscape with hundreds of millions of people still using Mach based operating systems thirty years after its creation. The Mach project popularized and refined concepts in virtual memory management,

hardware abstraction Hardware abstractions are sets of routines in software that provide programs with access to hardware resources through programming interfaces. The programming interface allows all devices in a particular class ''C'' of hardware devices to be acc ...

binary-code compatibility Binary-code compatibility (binary compatible or object-code compatible) is a property of a computer system, meaning that it can run the same executable code, typically machine code for a general-purpose computer central processing unit (CPU), ...

, and process management. These concepts advanced the state of operating systems and led to their practical and widespread adoption. Under Rashid's leadership, Microsoft Research has conducted research across various disciplines that include machine learning; multimedia and graphics, security, search, gaming, networking, artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. His team has collaborated with the world's most prominent researchers in academia, industry and government to advance the state of computing and to help secure the future of Microsoft's products. Rashid has authored a number of patents in areas such as

data compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compressi ...

networking Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

, and

s, and was a major developer of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

interactive TV Interactive television is a form of media convergence, adding data services to traditional television technology. It has included on-demand delivery of content, online shopping, and viewer polls. Interactive TV is an example of how new informat ...

system. He was promoted to vice president in 1994. In 2000, he became senior vice president of

. Rashid was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

in 2003 for advances in operating systems and leadership in industrial research. Rashid and his wife Terri Rashid have made several charitable donations, including the Rashid Auditorium at

. While a faculty member at CMU, he also performed research and published numerous papers and articles on topics such as networking, operating systems,

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

, and

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

s for

distributed computing Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different networked computers. The components of a distributed system commu ...

applications.

Awards and honors

* In 2003, he was elected to member of the

. * In 2008, he received the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award. *In 2008, he was inducted into the

American Academy of Arts & Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other F ...

*In 2008, he received the SIGOPS Hall of Fame Award *In 2009, he received the Microsoft Technical Recognition Award *Member of

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

Computer Directorate Advisory Committee * In 2014, he received the

ACM Software System Award The ACM Software System Award is an annual award that honors people or an organization "for developing a software system that has had a lasting influence, reflected in contributions to concepts, in commercial acceptance, or both". It is awarded b ...

References

External links

Richard Rashid: Founder Microsoft Research

TED Talk Seattle: Rick RashidRichard Rashid: Beyond Pervasive Computing Lecture
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rashid, Richard Carnegie Mellon University faculty Microsoft employees Living people Place of birth missing (living people) 1951 births Stanford University alumni University of Rochester alumni American people of Lebanese descent Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Kernel programmers Data compression researchers