Dr. Ya-Qin Zhang joined Baidu in September 2014 as President.

Prior to joining Baidu, Zhang was Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President and Chairman of Asia R&D Group, leading Microsoft’s R&D efforts in Asia-Pacific, Microsoft’s largest R&D establishment outside of U.S. with over 3,000 scientists and engineers. Over his 15 year tenure at Microsoft, Zhang has taken up various key positions, including the Managing Director of Microsoft Research Asia (2000-2004), Chairman of Microsoft China (2007-2012), Corporate Vice President of Mobile and Embedded Products (2004-2006), and Asia R&D Chairman until September 2014.

Before joining Microsoft, Zhang was Director of the Multimedia Technology Laboratory at Sarnoff Corp. Princeton, New Jersey (RCA Laboratories), where he oversaw the development of several significant digital video encoding and communications technologies for commercial and surveillance/security systems. Prior to that, from 1989 to 1994, Zhang was a senior technical staff member at GTE Laboratories Inc. (now part of Verizon Corp.) in Waltham, MA.

Zhang is a Fellow of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and has published more than 500 papers in leading international conferences and journals. He has been granted more than 60 U.S. patents in digital video, Internet, multimedia, wireless and satellite communications. He was a key contributor to the ISO/MPEG and ITU standardization efforts in digital video and multimedia. In 1997, he became the youngest ever Fellow of IEEE and has served as editor-in-chief for several influential IEEE journals. Currently, Zhang serves on the Board of Directors of five high-tech IT companies. He is an honorary or guest professor at more than 20 prestigious universities, and is an advisor to several government agencies. Zhang is also the Vice Chairman of Committee 100, a group of leading Chinese-Americans to promote the political, scientific, social, and economic exchanges between the U.S. and China.

Zhang received his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1983 and 1985. He received his Doctor of Science in Electrical Engineering from George Washington University, Washington D.C. in 1989.

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