2010 recipient of the J.W. Graham Medal
PhD '96
Steven Woods joined Google in 2008 as the engineering site director of Google Waterloo. He is responsible for fostering a creative culture of innovation, engineering, and product delivery in Google's Waterloo site. Steven leads a range of projects for Google in Waterloo including an initiative responsible for Google's mobile applications including Gmail and the recently launched Google Mobile Buzz; a range of advertising products including "Conversion Optimizer" - a service that allows advertisers to purchase advertising on a "value-delivered" basis instead of a cost-per-click basis; and a recently created new strategic initiative in Chrome and ChromeOS: the area of a new kind of touch-based mobile computing.
Prior to Google, Steven founded several companies including NeoEdge Networks - an in-game advertising company; Kinitos - a company dedicated to enabling creation of radically inexpensive and powerful consumer services; and Quack.com - an interactive voice portal service acquired by American Online/Time Warner in 2000. Steven has extensive experience in building and leading highly creative and successful teams - in consumer service invention and development, and in large-scale software engineering. Steven has received numerous engineering and academic awards and patents. He holds a PhD and a masters degree in Mathematics (Computer Science) from the University of Waterloo - and an undergraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan.