Tao Mei received the B.E. degree in automation and the Ph.D. degree in pattern recognition and intelligent systems from the University of Science and Technology of China, in 2001 and 2006, respectively. He joined Microsoft Research Asia as a Researcher Staff Member in 2006. His current research interests include multimedia content analysis, computer vision, and multimedia applications such as search, advertising, social network, and mobile applications. He is the author of seven book chapters and over 90 publications in these areas, and holds more than 25 filed international and U.S. patents or pending applications. He serves as an Associate Editor for Journal of Multimedia and Neurocomputing. He received the Best Paper and Best Demonstration Awards in ACM Multimedia 2007, the Best Poster Paper Award in IEEE MMSP 2008, and the Best Paper Award in ACM Multimedia 2009.