Microsoft Research, one of the world-leading research organizations in computer science, has recognized professor Erhard Rahm, University of Leipzig, with an Outstanding Collaborator Award. He is one from among 32 academics from around the world who are being honored for their contributions to the direction, visibility and value of Microsoft’s research and products. Rick Rashid, the founder and former head of Microsoft Research, has announced the award recipients at the Microsoft Faculty Summit in Redmond on July 13, 2016.

Prof. Rahm spent sabbaticals in the database group of Microsoft Research in 2000 and 2005, mainly

Picture of Prof. Rahm

 collaborating with Dr. Phil Bernstein. According to Microsoft, their collobaration defined the problem area of schema matching, a main solution step for most data exchange and data integration solutions. Their survey, published in 2001 in The VLDB Journal, stimulated a long line of research, resulting in more than 3700 citations. The VLDB 2001 conference paper based on that research won the VLDB Ten Year Best Paper award 2011. The continued collaboration addressed further data integration problems such as schema evolution.

Further information about the MSR Outstanding Collaborator Awards can be found here, and learn more about the honorees here.