Sepandar Kamvar

Kamvar's main contributions to computer science have been at the intersection of computer science and mathematics, particularly in the fields of personalized search, peer-to-peer networks, social search and data mining.[http://sap.mit.edu/resources/portfolio/kamvar/ New Faculty] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20121212131849/http://sap.mit.edu/resources/portfolio/kamvar/ |date=2012-12-12 }}. MIT SA+P Page. December 2011.[http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/kamvar-media-lab.html Sep Kamvar Joins MIT Media Lab]. MIT News. December 21, 2011.

As a graduate student at Stanford University, Kamvar developed tools that made it possible to compute personalized PageRank.[http://kamvar.org/personalized_search Personalized Search] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121019192756/http://kamvar.org/personalized_search |date=2012-10-19 }}. Kamvar.org. He also developed the first efficient algorithm for adding personal context to the internet search process.[https://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/03/pr0356.htm Researchers Develop Techniques for Computing Google-Style Web Rankings Up to Five Times Faster]. NSF.gov. May 13, 2003.[http://www-nlp.stanford.edu/publications.shtml NLP Publications]. Stanford NLP Page.[http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9378.html Numerical Algorithms for Personalized Search in Self-organizing Information Networks]. Princeton University Press. File created April 17. 2012.

In 2003, Kamvar co-founded Kaltix, a personalized search engine company.Olson, Stefanie.[http://news.cnet.com/2100-1024_3-5061873.html Searching for the Personal Touch]. CNET News. August 11, 2003. He was the CEO of Kaltix until Google acquired the company in September 2003.[http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2003/09/29/daily13.html Google Acquires Kaltix]. Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. September 30, 2003.[http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2003/09/29/daily12.html?jst=b_ln_hl Google Acquires Kaltix]. San Francisco Business Times. September 30, 2003.Moore, Cathleen. [http://www.infoworld.com/t/applications/google-grabs-search-start-308 Google Grabs Search Start-Up]. InfoWorld. September 30, 2003. After the acquisition of Kaltix, Kamvar joined Google, where he led the personalization efforts between 2003 and 2007.Calburn, Thomas. [http://www.informationweek.com/news/199202824 Google Gets Personal with iGoogle]. Information Week. May 1, 2007.Auchard, Eric. [https://web.archive.org/web/20160307155430/http://uk.reuters.com/article/oukin-uk-google-personalization-idUKN3043468220070430 Google Steps up Personalised Web Search Push]. Reuters. April 30, 2007.

Kamvar's research and work in peer-to-peer networks focused on the social mechanisms that reward cooperation and punish adversarial behavior.[http://www2003.org/detailed.htm Conference Program]. 2003 IWWWC. His 2003 paper, EigenTrust, is one of the most highly cited papers in the field.[https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=_KUU74QAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&pagesize=100 Sep Kamvar Scholar Page]. scholar.google.com.

Dog is a high-level programming language created by Kamvar and Salman Ahmad at MIT Media Lab.{{cite news|url=https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-10/15/dog-programming-language|title='Dog' uses natural language for social coding|publisher=Wired|date=15 October 2012}}

It was announced in spring 2012, and stems from the frustration faced by Kamvar with existing languages, and felt they made it needlessly difficult to write code that handled social interactions.{{cite news|url=http://paritynews.com/software/item/429-professor-develops-dog-programming-language-for-social-applications|title=Professor Develops Dog, Programming Language for Social Applications|publisher=Parity News|date=15 October 2012}} It is designed to facilitate easier creation of social computing applications, and is designed to facilitate programming in a natural language and allow newcomers the chance to learn programming more easily.{{cite news|url=https://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/11/start/code-for-the-rest-of-us|title=Sepandar Kamvar’s 'Dog' language opens up artistic possibilities|publisher=Wired|date=16 November 2012}}

Kamvar is an advocate for using the web as a medium for artistic expression. He believes the ability to constantly change and be viewed by millions of people simultaneously makes the web an opportune medium for art.

Kamvar created We Feel Fine with Jonathan Harris in 2005.[http://www.wefeelfine.org/faq.html We Feel Fine FAQ]. wefeelfine.org. Debuting in 2006, it is an interactive experience using more than 12 million human feelings collected over three years by scouring blog posts every 10 minutes for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling".[http://wefeelfine.org/methodology.html We Feel Fine Methodology]. wefeelfine.org. Since its debut, We Feel Fine has been exhibited all over the world, with Fast Company naming the project one of the "Decade's 14 Biggest Design Moments."[http://kamvar.org/publications#exhibitions List of Exhibitions] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120823150103/http://kamvar.org/publications |date=2012-08-23 }}. kamvar.og.

In 2009, Kamvar and Harris took the findings from the four years since We Feel Fine was launched in 2006 and turned them into a book called "We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion".[http://wefeelfine.org/book/ The Book]. wefeelfine.org.Popova, Maria. [https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2009-12/02/the-sum-of-all-emotions-jonathan-harris-qa.aspx The Sum of All Emotions]. wired.co.uk. December 2, 2009.Whelan, Christine. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-whelan/the-10-most-common-feelin_b_374456.html The 10 Most Common Feelings Worldwide]. The Huffington Post. December 1, 2009.

Kamvar created "I Want You To Want Me" with Jonathan Harris in 2007.[http://iwantyoutowantme.org/process.html The Process Page]. iwantyoutowantme.org. It is an interactive installation that searches online dating sites for certain phrases and displays them in blue and pink balloons that float and bump into each other.Baldwin, Rosecrans. [http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/the-digital-ramble-picturing-the-future/ Picturing the Future]. The Digital Ramble Blog. April 23, 2008.[http://iwantyoutowantme.org/statement.html Artist Statement]. iwantyoutowantme.org.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZUaXDm4qik I Want You To Want Me]. YouTube. Uploaded April 17, 2008. The project was commissioned by the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for their "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition.[http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/ Design and the Elastic Mind]. MoMA. It was installed on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2008.

Kamvar earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Princeton University in 1999. He received his Ph.D. in scientific computing and computational mathematics at Stanford University in 2004 under the guidance of Christopher Manning.{{cite web |last1=Manning |first1=Christopher |title=Christopher Manning and Ph.D. Students' Dissertations |url=https://nlp.stanford.edu/manning/dissertations/ |website=The Stanford Natural Language Processing Group |access-date=24 May 2022}}

• We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion (2009) {{ISBN|1-4391-1683-0}}
• Numerical Algorithms for Personalized Search in Self-organizing Information Networks (2010) {{ISBN|0-6911-4503-2}}
• Syntax & Sage: Reflections on Software and Nature (2015) {{ISBN|9780692563632|0692563636}}

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{{commons category|Sep Kamvar}}

• [http://www.kamvar.org/ Kamvar.org]—Official Website

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Category:American computer scientists

Category:Living people

Category:1977 births

Category:Iranian expatriate academics