Marissa Ann Mayer is Vice President of Location and Local Services at the search engine

Search engine

A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...

 company Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

. She has become one of the public faces of Google, providing a number of press interviews and appearing at events frequently to speak on behalf of the company.

Education and career

After graduating from Wausau West High School in 1993, Mayer was one of two delegates from Wisconsin selected by the Governor of that state to attend the National Youth Science Camp in West Virginia.

Mayer received her B.S. in Symbolic system

Symbolic system

In the fields of anthropology, sociology, and psychology, symbolic system refers to a system of interconnected symbolic meanings. In particular, the field focuses on the dynamic relationships between various symbols within different task or theoretical contexts...

s, graduating with honors

With Honors

With Honors is a 1994 dramatic comedy film starring Joe Pesci and Brendan Fraser. The film was directed by Alek Keshishian who has more famously directed music videos for Madonna and Bobby Brown.-Synopsis:...

, and M.S. in Computer Science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

 from Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

. For both degrees, she specialized in artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

. In 2009, the Illinois Institute of Technology

Illinois Institute of Technology

Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly called Illinois Tech or IIT, is a private Ph.D.-granting university located in Chicago, Illinois, with programs in engineering, science, psychology, architecture, business, communications, industrial technology, information technology, design, and law...

 granted Mayer an honoris causa doctorate degree honoring her pathfinding work in the field of search.

Mayer was the first female engineer hired at Google and one of their first 20 employees, joining the company in June 1999. Prior to joining Google, Mayer worked at the UBS research lab (Ubilab) in Zurich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

, Switzerland, and at SRI International

SRI International

SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...

 in Menlo Park

Menlo Park, California

Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...

, California.

User Interface (UI) & Design Work

Mayer has notable public involvement with Google Search

Google search

Google or Google Web Search is a web search engine owned by Google Inc. Google Search is the most-used search engine on the World Wide Web, receiving several hundred million queries each day through its various services....

 and Gmail

Gmail

Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Users may access Gmail as secure webmail, as well via POP3 or IMAP protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though...

, and can be considered significantly responsible for the success of these UIs. Fortune

Fortune (magazine)

Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...

magazine lists her as one of the 50 most powerful women in the world and the youngest woman ever to make the list.

External links

• "The adventures of Marissa" February 27, 2008 in San Francisco Magazine.
• Video-Interview February 2007 (English, German intro, German subtitles)
• "Inside Google's New-Product Process" June 30, 2006 in Business Week Online.
• "Managing Google's Idea Factory" October 3, 2005 in Business Week Online.
• Good Experience interview October 15, 2002
• Marissa Mayer At Le Web: The (Almost) Complete Interview December 10, 2008 at techcrunch.com
• Digg Dialogg: Marissa Mayer July 30, 2009 at digg.com
• Marissa Mayer On 'Twitchy' Google, Her Cell Phone Number, And Maps May 25, 2011 in HuffPost Tech

• Cyberposium 12: Marissa Mayer Keynote Video
• Innovation, Sharing and Dreams, Marissa speaking at Stanford
• Google I/O '08 Keynote by Marissa Mayer