Yousef Khalidi (M.S. ICS 1985, Ph.D. ICS 1989) serves as Corporate Vice President leading Microsoft’s AI for Science Engineering team and the Azure for Operators organization responsible for engineering, strategy, and partnerships. Yousef’s organization is responsible for building Microsoft Discovery, an extensible platform built to empower researchers to transform the entire discovery process with agentic AI. Yousef was a member of the team that conceived and built the initial version of Microsoft Azure (code named Red Dog), and has served in several engineering, product management, operational, and architectural roles in Microsoft.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Khalidi spent 14 years at Sun Microsystems where he was a Distinguished Engineer. At Sun, he held several R&D, architecture, and management positions in enterprise software, including CTO and Chief Architect of Solaris, Chief Architect of Sun's N1 utility computing platform, Chief Architect and Director of the Sun Cluster product line, and as a principal architect of the Solaris MC and the Spring advanced development projects. Khalidi also served as a member of Sun’s Technical Advisory Council.

Yousef earned his bachelor's degree in Computer Science from West Virginia University where he graduated summa cum laude. He earned his MS and PhD in Information and Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), with a minor in Performance Evaluation & Statistics.

Yousef is a member of Georgia Tech College of Computing Hall of Fame, and WVU Lane Department of CSEE Academy of Distinguished Alumni. He has served on various scientific and advisory boards including Georgia Tech President’s Advisory Board, Georgia Tech College of Computing Advisory Board, and QCRI’s Scientific Advisory Committee. He holds over 50 patents in distributed systems, networking, object-oriented system, and computer hardware.