Frank Wood is an assistant professor in the Columbia University
Department of Statistics.  Dr. Wood holds an MSc and PhD ('07) in
computer science from Brown University and a BS ('96) in the same from
Cornell University.  Prior to becoming faculty at Columbia he was a
postdoctoral research fellow of the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience
Unit of the University College London and a consultant to Stan James
Plc, a Gibraltar-based sports bookmaker.  His research focus is on the
development of new statistical methods for machine learning,
particularly so-called nonparametric Bayesian methods.    Some of the
practical benefits that stem from his research contributions include
improved neural decoding technology for human neuroprosthetic devices
and cutting-edge lossless compressors.  Dr. Wood is a former
entrepreneur whose first company, ToFish!, Inc., a content-based image
retrieval software company, was acquired by America Online in 2000.