Yahoo! Inc. has announced the opening of its new research lab in Haifa, Israel, its first in the region. The Yahoo! Research Israel Lab, will be led by Dr. Ronny Lempel. Lempel, a renowned information organisation and retrieval expert, will report directly to Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yates, vice president of Yahoo! Research, according to Yahoo.
Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo! Research said, “Search is still in its infancy. At Yahoo, we are working on the hard core science that can lead to search experiences that are significantly beyond the current art.” The Yahoo! Research Israel Lab is planning to focus on boiling down complex technology problems into simple solutions to bring about a change in Web search.

He further added, “Ronny Lempel is a great addition to the world-class team that we have assembled to develop a new approach to Web search. His expertise in search technologies and ties to local academia will help us draw on the best talent and knowledge from across the region and strengthen our worldwide R&D efforts”.

Lempel, who has previously worked at the Information Retrieval Group at IBM’s Haifa Research Lab and had his BSc., MSc. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, said, “Israel is fertile ground for incredibly talented technologists, researchers and engineers, and the Yahoo! Research Israel Lab provides the best opportunity to create the technologies that will underpin the next generation of search on the Internet, I look forward to building the Haifa team with the best talent this region has to offer”.