David Lipman wins 2013 jim Gray eScience Award

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  • About Jim Gray eScience Award

  • Each year, Microsoft Research presents the Jim Gray eScience Award to a researcher who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of data-intensive computing. The award—named for Jim Gray, a Technical Fellow for Microsoft Research and a Turing Award winner who disappeared at sea in 2007—recognizes innovators whose work truly makes science easier for scientists.
  • Jim Gray postulated that data exploration, or, as he termed it, eScience, is the evolutionary next step in scientific exploration, following the original, empirical phase and the subsequent theoretical and computational phases. In a lecture he delivered just 17 days before he went missing, Jim outlined the increasingly important challenge and opportunity afforded by the availability of previously unimaginable volumes of data and continuous research dedicated to creating new understanding of the world around us.

GMI talk by David J. Lipman (NCBI)


Award Recipients

2013 Award

Tony Hey presents David Lipman with the 2013 Jim Gray eScience Award
  • Tony Hey presents David Lipman with the 2013 Jim Gray eScience AwardDr. David Lipman, M.D., is director of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Under his leadership, NCBI has become one of the world’s premier repositories of biomedical and molecular biology data, providing invaluable information to both the research community and the public. Every day, more than 3 million users access NCBI’s more than 40 databases.
  • The timing couldn’t have been better. I had come to Bethesda, Maryland, to present Dr. David Lipman, M.D., director of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), with the seventh annual Jim Gray eScience Award. David was selected for his contribution to the development of NCBI, one of the world’s premier repositories of biomedical and molecular biology data. Every day, more than 3 million users access NCBI’s more than 40 databases. NCBI is part of the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.
David Lipman wins 2013 Jim Gray eScience Award
  • My visit opportunely coincided with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the NCBI, an occasion I got to celebrate with David, who has served as NCBI’s director since its inception, and with his colleagues and fellow scientists. Imagine, 25 years of making biomedical information readily available to the public and the research community.
  • The gathering was brief, just 90 minutes, yet we had time to remember Jim Gray’s legacy. Several years before his disappearance at sea in 2007, Jim had visited NCBI and became excited by its mission, its people, and the activities in which it was engaged. He collaborated with the NCBI team in creating a “portable” version of PubMed Central, the archive for full-text versions of NIH-funded research papers. The success of this initiative is now embodied in Europe PubMed Central archive, for example. That Jim believed that NCBI represented the next generational approach to making scientific publications and scientific data accessible to future researchers is demonstrated by his specific mention of it in his oft-quoted last public talk. Together, David and I looked back at what NCBI had accomplished and remembered Jim Gray’s influence. I was honored to share comments about Jim’s Fourth Paradigm of data-intensive scientific discovery and to recognize David’s contributions publicly by presenting him with the year’s Jim Gray eScience Award.
Tony Hey presents David Lipman with 2013 Jim Gray eScience Award
  • David Lipman’s career exemplifies the kind of research leadership that Jim Gray believed in. The Jim Gray eScience Award is, more than anything, recognition of such leadership. In Jim's memory, we select recipients whom he would have identified as those whose work and support of others have made a difference.
As one scientist put it, “Jim Gray preferred doers.” David was selected for his contribution to the development of what must be the most comprehensive set of open access resources in the biosciences. Jim Gray would be proud!
Tony Hey, Vice President, Microsoft Research

2012 Award

Antony John Williams receives the Jim Gray eScience Award from Tony Hey at the 2012 Microsoft Research eScience Workshop
  • Antony John Williams receives the Jim Gray eScience Award from Tony Hey at the 2012 Microsoft Research eScience WorkshopAntony John Williams is vice president of strategic development and head of Chemoinformatics for the Royal Society of Chemistry. He has pursued a career built on rich experience in experimental techniques, implementation of new nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technologies, research and development, and teaching, as well as analytical laboratory management. He has been a leader in making chemistry publically available through collective action: his work on ChemSpider helps provide fast text and structure search access to data and links on more than 28 million chemicals, and this resource is freely available to the scientific community and the general public. Learn more...

2011 Award

Tony Hey presents Mark Abbott with the Jim Gray eScience Award at the 2011 Microsoft Research eScience Workshop
  • Tony Hey presents Mark Abbott with the Jim Gray eScience Award at the 2011 Microsoft Research eScience WorkshopMark Abbott is dean and professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. He is also serving a six-year term on the National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation and provides scientific advice to the White House and to Congress. Throughout his career, Mark has contributed to integrating biological and physical science, made early innovations in data-intensive science, and provided educational leadership. Learn more...

2010 Award

Phil Bourne accepts the Jim Gray eScience Award from Tony Hey at the 2010 eScience Workshop
  • Phil Bourne accepts the Jim Gray eScience Award from Tony Hey at the 2010 eScience Workshop Phil Bourne, the recipient of the third-annual Jim Gray eScience Award, is a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California at San Diego. Phil is also the Associate Director of the RCSB Protein Data Bank, an Adjunct Professor at the Burnham Institute, and a past president of the International Society for Computational Biology. “Phil’s contributions to open access in bioinformatics and computational biology are legion, and are exactly the sort of groundbreaking accomplishments in data-intensive science that we celebrate with the Jim Gray Award,” notes Tony Hey, Corporate Vice President of External Research.  Learn more...

2009 Award

Jeff Dozier accepts the Jim Gray eScience Award from Tony Hey at the 2009 eScience Workshop
  • Jeff Dozier accepts the Jim Gray eScience Award from Tony Hey at the 2009 eScience WorkshopJeff Dozier was presented the 2009 award in recognition of his achievements in advancing environmental science through leading multi-disciplinary research and collaboration. While presenting the award, Tony Hey stated, “Jeff Dozier's work epitomizes what the Jim Gray eScience Award is all about … using data-intensive computing to accelerate scientific discovery and, ultimately, to help solve some of society's greatest challenges. By combining environmental science with computer science technologies, Jeff brings a new level of understanding to climate change and its impact on our planet." Learn about Dozier’s thoughts about environmental science in The Fourth Paradigm: Data Intensive Scientific Discovery, pages 13–19.

2008 Award

Tony Hey presents Carole Goble with the 2008 Jim Gray eScience Award

2007 Award

Tony Hey presents Alex Szalay with the 2007 Jim Gray eScience Award
  • Tony Hey presents Alex Szalay with the 2007 Jim Gray eScience Award The winner of the first Jim Gray eScience Award was Alex Szalay, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University. Alex was recognized for his foundational contributions to interdisciplinary advances in the field of astronomy and groundbreaking work with Jim Gray.

Award Criteria

  • Award recipients are selected for their ground-breaking, fundamental contributions to the field of eScience. They are innovators from both technological and scientific backgrounds who have had a long-term impact in eScience, whose field of work crosses disciplines, who work on international projects, and who pursue open, supportive, and collaborative research models. And, finally, award recipients are individuals we feel Jim Gray would have selected for their influence on areas of science that could appeal to the public imagination.