Tony Hey is corporate vice president in Microsoft Research, and responsible for its multidisciplinary eScience Research Group and research collaborations between Microsoft and university researchers worldwide. Previously, he directed the U.K.'s e-Science Initiative, helping to build a new scientific infrastructure for collaborative, multidisciplinary, data-intensive research.

Before that he was Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science, and Dean of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Southampton, and led a group researching parallel computing.  Tony is a fellow of the U.K.'s Royal Academy of Engineering, the British Computer Society, the Institute of Engineering and Technology, the Institute of Physics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  He was awarded a CBE for his services to science in 2005.   Tony is passionate about conveying the excitement of science and technology to young people.  He has co-authored "popular" books on quantum mechanics and relativity, and written technical books on particle physics and computing.