Microsoft names technical fellow to head Jim Gray Systems Lab

Microsoft has lured David DeWitt, former head of the Univerity of Wisconsin Computer Science Department aboard as a Microsoft Fellow.

He won’t be leaving Badgerland behind: DeWitt will lead the new Microsoft Jim Gray Systems Lab, an advanced development center right there in Madison.

Gray, a respected researcher and database guru, was assumed lost at sea last year after during a solo sailing trip. He was last seen January, 2007 and a wide-ranging, high-tech search was suspended the following month.

Wisconsin’s Computer Science Department has its share of luminary alums including fellow Microsoft Fellows Peter Spiro and Rakesh Agrawal.

DeWitt is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and remains emeritus professor of computer science at the University of Wisconsin.