Today I received the exciting news that I was chosen to be one of the 2005-2006 Microsoft Fellows as a graduate student of MIT. I am very thankful to all the people who helped and recommended me. In particular, I want to thank Harry Shum, the current Managing Director of MSRA, who has changed my life since our first interview in March 2000. After the interview, I worked with the computer vision group of MSRA for almost three years - first as an intern and later as an assistant researcher after having obtained my master’s degree from Tsinghua University. I came to MIT to pursue my doctoral degree in 2003. The past four years have been very memorable, both with challenges and achievements, but it all started with the internship.

Free environment

I still vividly remember the first day I worked as an intern (visiting student) in MSRA. I expected to be assigned a lot of tasks, but my mentor merely asked me to get familiar with the environment. Gradually I found out that the lab was so neat. The atmosphere was relaxing. There was a lot of freedom. We were not required to adhere to strict working hours. Everyone worked as long as he/she wanted, or took a break if one had worked for an extended period of time. But the most important thing is that you were free to exercise your talents and gifts. There was no administrative limit. MSRA provides such a wonderful environment that almost everyone who is smart and diligent can feel at home. You may enjoy coding if you are a real hacker. You may bury yourself in the whole symbol and equation world if you are a math wizard. You may compose figures, equations and texts into a great symphony if you are a poet of writing scientific papers. This freedom makes it very pleasant to work in this lab.

Various non-restricted research topics

MSRA engages in a wide variety of research topics, and you will be sure to find your favorite. During my three-year stay at MSRA, I expanded my research interests to include machine learning, computer vision and computer graphics. These problems are fascinating. MSRA is a research lab, and research implies uncertainties, which are the source of a lot of fun. Sometimes you do not have to dwell on one single area. Indeed, I published several papers which were not within my original research areas. Researchers in MSRA are very open-minded to different ideas. You can find true academic freedom in this industrial research lab.

Focus, and achieve great things

But interests are far from real understanding. The world-class researchers in our lab provide us with insight on which problem has been solved, which could be solved, and which might have to be solved in the future. We were soon able to focus our attention on studying novel but solvable topics. Step by step we came up with new theories and algorithms. Some of our ideas were transferred to products. We published papers with innovative results, which were cited and referenced in academic conferences and research papers. Eventually our lab and each person received worldwide recognition. Here at MIT, I continue to hear great news about MSRA.

People

The one quality of MSRA which impresses me the most is its people. MSRA has a lot of prestigious researchers, scholars and professionals, and they all have very different styles and ideas. Every time I encountered a problem or a question, I was able to find someone (most of the time my mentor) who could offer some sort of help. Most of the time, someone was able to understand my problem and pointed me in a direction to find a possible solution. That was exactly all I needed, because most of the time, research work involves searching for the right direction. Many of my ideas were inspired from discussions with my colleagues. Competition inevitably exists, but collaboration is much more important. There is hardly any work done by one person alone. You will find that people at the lab are willing to collaborate. You are not alone if you have so many co-workers. In addition, many world-renowned researchers and professors visit MSRA every year. I personally learnt a lot from these visiting scholars. For instance, I learned much about machine learning from a UCLA professor for almost two years. This experience has been invaluable to me.

Mentorship

All researchers in MSRA keep a close relationship with their students. I believe many of us owe a great deal of our growth to their supervision, so that we could keep up with the scientific world, and even push forward the frontiers. Even though I left MSRA one and a half years ago, I still maintain close contact with Harry Shum, my former advisor. Harry not only supervises my research work, but he also cares for me as a person. My gratitude to him is beyond words. He is very insightful in identifying the right research directions, formulating research problems and supervising students. Like a father, he encouraged me when I made progress, comforted me when I felt frustrated, and helped me when I was shaken and weary. Like a brother, he dined with us, worked side by side with us, and even shared his life experiences with us.

Hard work

Even though MSRA provides a large degree of flexibility, there is no doubt that hard work is still the key if you want to achieve anything there. I had many experiences of staying in the lab overnight alone for studying or debugging. Not that MSRA encourages students to work overnight, but hard work is necessary if we are to establish a world-class lab in China. MSRA is not a place for dawdlers, but for warriors. I find it very gratifying to make a computer program work, publish a paper in a target conference and transfer code to a Microsoft product. Of course there were times when we felt dejected, when our ideas did not work, when after a couple of days, we still could not locate the bug which plagued a program, or when a paper got rejected. Keep your head up and be persistent. An idea has to be annealed many times to be mature. Computer code has to be debugged and tested under all kinds of circumstances to be robust. Your first paper may only be accepted by a small conference. Where you start is not important, it is your attitude which matters.

Conclusion

It is really a wonderful opportunity to work in MSRA because of its friendly and congenial environment, a broad variety of research topics, academic freedom, well-focused program, world-class researchers, high-quality students, outstanding supervisors, and the potential achievements you can make after hard work. This is the place where you can show your quality, and prepare yourself for a bright future.