Dr. Rajeev Rastogi Chosen to Run New Yahoo! Bangalore Lab

On March 3, Yahoo! unveiled a new lab in Bangalore that will focus on researching next generation search and advertising technologies. The lab will be led by eminent scientist Dr. Rajeev Rastogi, who has been named Vice President and Head, Yahoo! Labs Bangalore. The new lab is an expansion of the existing India R&D center, whose core activity includes developing innovative technologies and global product platforms for Yahoo! Inc.

“It’s a special treat to have a scientist of Rajeev’s caliber and experience leading our efforts in Bangalore,” said Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo! Research. Rastogi was most recently the founding director of the Bell Labs Research Center in Bangalore. He joined Bell Labs in Murray in 1993 as a Member of Technical Staff in the Information Sciences Research Center, and became a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in 1998. In 1999, he was appointed as the Director of the Internet Management Research Department, and in 2003, he became a Bell Labs Fellow.

Rastogi reveals that one of the driving forces behind his decision to join Yahoo! is the opportunity to work with a high caliber, world-class team of experts. He is also looking forward to collaborating with his influential colleagues on a wide range of important research areas that will enable him to work on some of the “toughest computer science problems today, and make an impact on the Web.”

“The kind of computer science problems that people are working on at Yahoo! are very exciting and at the cutting edge,” said Rastogi. “It is difficult to find another company that collects so much data, and with a need to manage data at such a large scale. These lead to very interesting data mining and data management challenges which align well with my own interests.”

Rastogi also sees several areas of importance that will present a vast array of future opportunities for Yahoo! “Mining large amounts of data to find what is relevant to users is going to be a serious challenge in the coming years,” said Rastogi. “This is because the volume of content out there continues to explode as more people and machines get on the Internet.”

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