Sepandar David Kamvar

Sepandar David Kamvar, also known as Sep Kamvar, is a Persian American computer scientist, artist, and entrepreneur based in San Francisco, CA. He is a consulting assistant professor of computational and mathematical engineering at Stanford University [1].

Computer science

Kamvar’s main contributions to computer science have been at the intersection between computer science and mathematics, particularly in the fields of personalized search and peer-to-peer networks.

As a graduate student at Stanford University, he, with Taher Haveliwala and Glen Jeh, developed the mathematical fundamentals behind personalized search [2]. In early 2003, he dropped out of his Ph.D. program at the age of 25 to found Kaltix, a personalized search engine company which was acquired by Google later that year [3]. At Google, he was responsible for building and leading the engineering efforts in personalization at Google, most notably Google Personalized Search and iGoogle. He later finished his Ph.D. and is currently a consulting assistant professor at Stanford.

In addition to personalized search, Kamvar’s other main contribution to computer science has been in peer-to-peer networks. His 2003 paper, EigenTrust, is one of the most cited papers in the field [4].

Art

Kamvar’s most well-known art works have been the web-based pieces We Feel Fine [5], I Want You To Want Me [6] and Lovelines [7], all collaborations with Jonathan Harris. These pieces use material found in blogs, social networks, and online dating sites to illuminate human emotions and desires. We Feel Fine has been exhibited in San Francisco, New York, Seoul, and Prague, and was a Yahoo Pick of the Day [8]. I Want You To Want Me was a commission for the Design and The Elastic Mind exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.

Education

Kamvar attended Princeton University, where he received a bachelors in Chemistry in 1999. He received his Ph.D. in Scientific Computing and Computational Mathematics at Stanford University in 2004.