About Intel Research Seattle
If you visit the Intel Research Seattle lab near the University of Washington campus, you may find a Ph.D. student in deep discussion with an Intel researcher. A seminar on mobile computing open to the research community might be in session, while elsewhere in the lab a project team gathers around a robot to test their latest software prototype. The atmosphere is collegial and the feeling is open and inviting. What you won't find are Intel researchers speaking in hushed tones, stopping when a student or faculty member walks by.
Founded in 2001, Intel Research Seattle is one of three "university labs" in Intel Research. Like its sister labs, Intel Research Berkeley near UC Berkeley and Intel Research Pittsburgh on the CMU campus, Intel Research Seattle has roughly twenty permanent staff plus an equal number of associated graduate and undergraduate students, interns, faculty and visitors. Each lab has a different research focus in support of the Intel Research vision of Essential Computing. The Seattle lab is broadly focused on future computing systems that are woven into the fabric of everyday life -- moving computing off the desktop and into the real world. Interdisciplinary projects and an emphasis on prototyping novel systems and user evaluation drive this agenda. The research staff are recognized leaders across a range of topics from sensing and wireless systems, through machine learning, to human-computer interaction. As a "university lab", Intel Research Seattle is based on an innovative model of industry-university research that Intel has pioneered to enhance and accelerate long-term research. Under this model, much research is conducted by Intel researchers in collaboration with faculty and students all year round and is openly published. The lab has close ties to the University of Washington: Intel researchers are Affiliate Faculty or collaborators with Computer Science & Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Public Health, Aero & Astro, Medicine, and the iSchool. It's a win-win arrangement designed to generate breakthrough research results.
Further information on Intel Research Seattle projects and staff is available as an overview brochure (2007 open house brochure) and elsewhere on this website. Information on Intel Research and the Open Collaborative Research model follows. Intel Research Seattle also holds an annual open house to showcase its research, and this event is open to the research community. The 2008 Open House will be held on October 1, 2008.
About Intel Research
Intel Research is an exploratory research organization within Intel whose mission is to drive high-impact, off-roadmap research that is vital to the company. It is led by Andrew Chien, Vice President, Corporate Technology Group and Director, Intel Research. Intel Research consists of a network of labs with deep collaborative ties to university researchers and Intel product groups, plus associated higher education programs that engage with focus schools and sponsor research in the academic community. Three university labs in Seattle, Berkeley and Pittsburgh are located nearby their primary external collaboration partners, the University of Washington, UC Berkeley and CMU, respectively. The People and Practices Research Lab, located in Hillsboro, and the Santa Clara Lab, with integrated biosystems and other research expertise, also operate under a collaborative research model. In addition, Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers (UPCRC) at UC Berkeley and Illinois (UIUC) are joint research efforts between the universities, Intel and Microsoft.
Research in this network of labs is directed toward a broad vision of the future. Over the years, computing has steadily evolved, moving from the machine room out into people's workplaces and into their daily lives. As this transformation continues, we will see computing evolve from being a number of separate devices we each use occasionally to dozens of devices that are an essential part of daily life. This vision of Essential Computing is broken down into research themes that focus on making technology more viable, more useful, more personal, and more essential in our daily lives. Through these research directions, we seek to simplify and enrich all aspects of our daily lives through applications and systems technologies that empower each of us as individuals and connect us to each other.
Open Collaborative Research
The Open Collaborative Research (OCR) model enables Intel Research labs to work closely on joint projects with university researchers. The OCR model was pioneered by Intel and designed to avoid the conflicts over intellectual property (IP) rights that delay or constrain many traditional university-industry collaborations. It emphasizes close collaboration with the university and non-exclusive rights to IP. The labs are owned and funded by Intel, but much of their research is published and widely shared.
One unique aspect of Intel's university labs is that the position of lab director draws from the nearby university and rotates every three years. This creates deep ties between the lab and university and ensures that the research agendas stay fresh. For example, the Seattle Lab is directed by David Wetherall, who succeeded James Landay and Gaetano Borriello to become the third director. This has strengthened the systems, HCI, and ubiquitous computing expertise in the lab, respectively, as part of a steady evolution of the research focus of the lab.
This model has succeeded in practice in many respects. It provides the labs with access to the best and brightest via collaboration with faculty, students and interns. It attracts top research talent; in several cases Intel Research staff have landed prestigious academic jobs after working at the university labs. It expands the local research community, bringing expertise and resources physically near the university. It removes traditional barriers to innovation between corporate and university labs. Most of all it helps to generate breakthrough research results by placing cutting-edge technology not available elsewhere in the hands of innovative researchers.