Amit Singhal

Biography

Born in Jhansi, a city in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, Singhal received a Bachelor of Engineering degree in computer science from IIT Roorkee in 1989. He continued his computer science education in the United States, and received an M.S. degree from University of Minnesota Duluth in 1991. He wrote about his time at the University of Minnesota Duluth:

Singhal continued his studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and received a Ph.D. degree in 1996. At Cornell, Singhal studied with Gerard Salton, a pioneer in the field of information retrieval, the academic discipline which forms the foundation of modern search. John Battelle, in his book The Search, calls Gerard Salton "the father of digital search." After getting a Ph.D. in 1996, Singhal joined AT&T Labs (previously a part of Bell Labs), where he continued his research in information retrieval, speech retrieval and other related fields.

Controversy

He left Google on 26 February 2016, following sexual-harassment allegations.{{cite news |title=Amit Singhal, an Influential Engineer at Google, Will Retire

He later joined Uber as Senior Vice President of software engineering in 2017 but was asked to resign for failing to disclose the reason for his resignation from Google. It was later revealed that Google paid him $35 million as his exit package.

Career

In 2000, he was recruited by friend Krishna Bharat to join Google. Singhal ran Google's core search quality department where he and his team were responsible for the Google search algorithms. According to The New York Times, Singhal was the "master" of Google's ranking algorithm – the formulas that decide which Web pages best answer each user's question. As a reward for his rewrite of the search engine in 2001, Singhal was named a "Google Fellow". Singhal served as the head of Google's core search ranking team until his retirement announced on 26 February 2016.

In 2017, he joined Uber as SVP of engineering, reporting to CEO Travis Kalanick, and with his fellow Google alum Kevin Thompson operating as SVP of marketplace engineering.

Honors and awards

In 2011 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. Fortune named Singhal one of the smartest people in tech. In 2011, Singhal was given the Outstanding Achievement in Science and Technology Award at The Asian Awards. He was elected member of the National Academy of Engineering.

References

References

1. (4 February 2016). "Amit Singhal's journey from Jhansi to Google". [[CNN-IBN]].
2. "Alumni by Year".
3. "Abstract/Details".
4. "acknowledgements in doctoral thesis of Amit Singhal".
5. [http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/10/google_search_g.html Bloomberg Businessweek's interview with Amit Singhal] {{webarchive. link. (17 April 2010)
6. Adams, Tim. (2013-01-19). "Google and the future of search: Amit Singhal and the Knowledge Graph". The Guardian.
7. Amitabh Kumar Singhal. (1997). "Term Weighting Revisited". Cornell University.
8. "University of Minnesota's page with Amit Singhal biography".
9. "University of Minnesota's newsletter. Alumni spotlight – Amit Singhal.".
10. "Google paid $35 million to Indian-origin executive Amit Singhal who quit over harassment charges". Financial Express.
11. (11 March 2019). "Google confirms it agreed to pay $135 million to two execs accused of sexual harassment".
12. "Google paid $35 million to former executive accused of sexual harassment". CBS News.
13. Swisher, Kara. (February 27, 2017). "Uber's SVP of engineering is out after he did not disclose he left Google in a dispute over a sexual harassment allegation". [[Recode]].
14. Etherington, Darrell. (20 January 2017). "Uber hires former Google search chief Amit Singhal as SVP of Engineering".
15. (20 January 2017). "Uber hires Google search veteran Singhal for senior engineering post". Reuters.
16. "Google paid former executive $35m after sexual assault allegation". The Guardian.
17. Griswold, Alison. (27 February 2017). "Uber fired a top engineer for covering up allegations of sexual harassment". [[Quartz (publication).
18. (3 June 2007). "Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine (Published 2007)". The New York Times.
19. [https://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_google_algorithm/all/1 Wired Magazine: Exclusive: How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web]
20. Etherington, Darrell. (20 January 2017). "Uber hires former YouTube exec Kevin Thompson as VP of Marketplace Engineering".
21. "About ACM Fellows".
22. [http://www.rediff.com/us/amitsinghal_top50.html India Abroad: Top 50 Most Influential Indian Americans - Amit Singhal]
23. [https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1007/gallery.smartest_people_tech.fortune/24.html The smartest people in tech - Amit Singhal] {{webarchive. link. (12 July 2010)
24. [http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/media-centre/news/asian-awards Home Secretary celebrates Asian Achievement]