I'm a retired (as of 16 March 2018) Information Retrieval researcher based in Canberra, Australia. Most recently I was an Applied Researcher in the Bing (Microsoft) team.
I hold an honorary professorship in the College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics at the Australian National University.
Well into my retirement I realised that my love of research and writing (both English and code) had not expired with cessation of paid employment. In 2019/2020 I wrote a lot of code, which led to the first book, a research monograph, in the list below.
By David Hawking, Bodo Billerbeck, Paul Thomas and Nick Craswell, published by Morgan & Claypool (royalties to Médecins Sans Frontières).
By David Hawking. A history of computing at ANU compiled to mark the 50th anniversary (on 02 March, 2021) of undergraduate Computer Science teaching at ANU.
By David Hawking. A travel book mostly written in 1991 about European trips in 1979, 1982 and 1985. Although no longer at all useful as a guide, the book is even more interesting due to the massive changes which have occurred in the 40+ years since the first journey. Released in 2020 after addition of many photographs, a preface, and an afterword. Available for free download in pdf and ePub formats.
By David Hawking. A history of the web and enterprise search engine Funnelback, and the research and commercialisation activity which led up to it. Released in 2021 on the 30th anniversary of the first work on what became the Funnelback technology.
By David Hawking. Over a period of around 15 years from 2001, Kathy Griffiths and her colleagues at ANU’s Centre for Mental Health Research (CMHR) operated in a rare sweet spot for academic research. Winning tens of millions of dollars in funding, they were carrying out innovative, impactful, and influential research into e-mental health, collaborating with prestigious institutions across the globe, and delivering benefit to hundreds of thousands of sufferers of mental ill-health around the world. CMHR’s online interventions such as MoodGym, eCouch, and MHGuru have attracted users from over 190 countries and been translated into many different languages. Along the way CMHR influenced public policy on suicide and anti-depressants. During most of the period Kathy Griffiths was Director or Deputy Director of CMHR. Kathy’s remarkable research record has been achieved despite suffering chronic illness, including CFS and depression, for much of her working life.
By David Hawking. A family history centred on me and my two sisters.
From 2008 to 2013 I worked at the Funnelback enterprise search company in the role of Chief Scientist.
Between 1998 and 2008 I was a research scientist at CSIRO.
From 1996 to 2003 I was a coordinator of VLC and Web tracks in the annual Text Retrieval Conference (TREC). The activities of these tracks are summarised in Chapter 9 of the MIT Press book (Ellen M. Voorhees and Donna K. Harman (Ed.s), TREC - Experiment and Evaluation in Information Retrieval, ISBN 0262220733.). From 2007 to 2011 I was a member of the Scientific Board of the Information Retrieval Facility in Vienna. I was a member of the editorial board for the Information Retrieval journal (IRJ) for all of its first 20 volumes. I was a Program Chair of ACM SIGIR in 2003 and again in 2006. In 2003 I was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. In 2005 I was awarded the Chris Wallace prize for Computer Science research at the Australasian Computer Science Week. In 2012 I was named as joint winner of the Tony Kent Strix award.
I am very pleased that Microsoft decided to open-source two projects to which I contributed while an employee:
Apologies that there are no recent ones. Despite my best intentions, I haven't got around to updating.