Desney Tan

Desney S Tan
Born1976 (age 47–48)
Alma materCarnegie Mellon University
University of Notre Dame
AwardsTR35 (2007)
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
Human-Computer Interaction
Healthcare
Life Sciences
InstitutionsMicrosoft Research
Doctoral advisorRandy Pausch

Desney Tan is vice president and managing director of Microsoft Health Futures, a cross-organizational incubation group that serves as Microsoft's Health and Life Science "moonshot factory".[1] He also holds an affiliate faculty appointment in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington,[2] serves on the Board of Directors for ResMed (NYSERMD, ASXRMD),[3] is senior advisor and chief technologist for Seattle-based life science incubator IntuitiveX,[4] advises multiple startup companies (e.g. Proprio Vision[5]), and is an active startup and real estate investor.[6]

Tan was recipient of a National Science and Technology Board (NTSB) Fellowship in 2001, an Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (formerly NTSB) Fellowship in 2002,[7] and a Microsoft Research Fellowship in 2003.[8] He was honored as one of MIT Technology Review's 2007 Young Innovators Under 35 (TR35) in 2007 for his work on Brain Computer Interfaces.[9] He was also named one of SciFi Channel's Young Visionaries at TED 2009, as well as Forbes' Revolutionaries: Radical Thinkers and their World-Changing Ideas for his work on Whole Body Computing.[10] He was the Technical Program Chair of the prestigious ACM SIGCHI Conference in 2008[11] and General Chair in 2011.[12] His research interests primarily focus on Human-Computer Interaction, Physiological Computing, and Healthcare.