Daniel Smith

Daniel F. Smith joined IBM Research in 1997 after visiting several magnetic recording research labs and concluding that IBM's promised the most real research. He holds an M.A. in physics from the University of Cambridge (U.K., 1993) and a Ph.D. from the University of Plymouth (U.K.), where he explored Bayesian interpretation of undisciplined magnetic recording channels. Smith is happiest when holding a soldering iron in one hand and a keyboard in the other, persevering to get little lights to blink.

Smith is currently pushing high-speed data through PCIe AI cards with the NorthPole project. Previously, he was part of the Cloud Data Architecture team, a group dedicated to prototyping future storage possibilities. Notable contributions have been the iSCSI protocol, team lead for the first network DVD player, a customized flash SSD, and servo and kinematics in blink-of-an-eye high performance robotic swarms for data retrieval. (One prior project was a ground-up advanced RAID system that didn't require you to kick it in frustration, and wouldn't fail even if you did, accidentally, perhaps several times, with very heavy boots.)