The people at Microsoft Research New England are excited to announce that Boaz Barak will be joining them. I imagine the situation is similar to their hiring of Madhu Sudan. They continue to build up a remarkable collection of researchers.
Harvard's Allston complex is officially suspended.
JeffE doesn't post so much these days, so you might have missed this great post with his favorite useless theorem. (I hope this starts a series of "Favorite Useless Theorems" -- please send him, or me, if you have examples of your own.)
Nela Rybowicz, staff senior editor for IEEE (and who I've dealt with for pretty much all of my Transactions on Information Theory papers), informed me that she'll soon be retiring. She'll be missed.
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This is a real coup for MSR, and a blow to Princeton...
The people at Microsoft Research New England are excited to announce that Boaz Barak will be joining them. I imagine the situation is similar to their hiring of Madhu Sudan...
Congrats to Boaz, but I have to wonder whether this idea [people effectively tying up two positions] is a good trend for the field. If I understand correctly, Princeton will be reluctant to hire a theorist to "replace" Boaz as long as he has the option of coming back. So, overall, there is one less hiring slot available for a theorist...
Your argument makes a good point about positions in general. However, likely BB is not tying up two positions as the position at MSR was created just for him, since he does not appear to be replacing anyone. So eventually, if he goes to MSR, then a new position will have been created.
The point is one to consider in general. Last year many of the CI fellows already had postdocs (with lower pay since CI pay is $75,000). Many of the positions that they "gave up" to take the CI postdoc do not appear to have been refilled. So there are many other situations in which this affects people as well (on a greater scale).
...however, likely BB is not tying up two positions as the position at MSR was created just for him...
And that is one less position at MSR that can be created for someone else...
Congrats to Boaz, but I have to wonder whether this idea [people effectively tying up two positions] is a good trend for the field.
It's not a new trend - it happens all the time in academia. Whenever someone moves from one tenured job to another, they never give up the first job immediately (but rather go on leave for a year or two). Even if they are certain they would never return, publicly turning down the option to return would be a dreadful insult to their previous employer.
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