Management Team

Jay Budzik, PhD, Founder and Chief Technology Officer

Dr. Jay Budzik, co-inventor of MediaRiver's core product ClickSurge, leads the research and development efforts of the company. Prior to founding MediaRiver, he was an active researcher in computer science for the last seven years at Northwestern University's Intelligent Information Laboratory, where he led a wide array of research projects aimed at facilitating access to information. Dr. Budzik's other projects included an intelligent question and answering system for delegates at the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago in 1996, and the Flytrap system, which automatically synthesizes new music experiences for a group based on observed preferences. He is widely published on topics ranging from groupware to intelligent agents. One Budzik paper, "User Interactions with Everyday Applications as Context for Just-in-time Information Access", is cited frequently by top international researchers and industry leaders. Budzik has delivered demonstrations and lectures to audiences ranging from international research groups to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, including invited talks at Ford Motor Company, the MIT Media Lab, the International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, and the American Society for Information Science. Articles on Budzik's research have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Chicago Sun-Times, WGN-TV and L'Ordinateur Individuel.

Budzik earned a B.S. with both general honors and honors in computer science from The College of The University of Chicago, and holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Northwestern University. He graduated from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, IL.