PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Greg Hullender

Also known as Gregory N. Hullender

Greg Hullender is a researcher and engineer whose AI work spans handwriting recognition, search correction, and machine-learned ranking. At GO and Microsoft, he developed context-based handwriting methods and helped shape search spelling correction before coauthoring the 2005 RankNet paper. He studied in the University of Washington's MA project option in 2012, contributed an Amazon method for evaluating task results in 2014, and shared ICML's 2015 Test of Time Award with his coauthors. As of October 2026, he is a co-editor of Rocket Stack Rank.

Now at
Rocket Stack Rank
Works
3
Citations
2,796
h-index
1
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1992

    Context-based handwriting recognition

    In 1992, he patents a GO Corporation method for recognizing handwritten characters through shape and contextual analysis.

  2. 2000–2004

    Handwriting and search at Microsoft

    In 2000, he patents a Microsoft method for recognizing handwritten characters. By December 2004, he works as a Search engineer, with earlier spell-correction work and handwriting-recognition algorithms for Microsoft's Tablet PC software.

  3. 2005

    RankNet and learning to rank

    With six colleagues at Microsoft Research, he publishes Learning to Rank Using Gradient Descent in August 2005. The paper introduces RankNet, a neural-network method for learning ranking functions, and reports tests on data from a commercial search engine.

  4. 2012

    An MA project at Washington

    In spring 2012, he studies in the University of Washington's MA program with the internship/project option.

  5. October 2014

    Amazon task evaluation

    In October 2014, he co-invents an Amazon Technologies method for evaluating the quality of task-judging results.

  6. 2015

    An ICML Test of Time Award

    He shares ICML's 2015 Test of Time Award with six coauthors for Learning to Rank Using Gradient Descent, their 2005 paper.

  7. August 2017

    An AI panel at Worldcon 75

    In August 2017, he joins a Worldcon 75 panel on AI and science fiction as a research scientist and software engineer, after work at Amazon and Microsoft. He argues that human-like robots remain far from reality.

  8. As of October 2026

    Co-editing Rocket Stack Rank

    As of October 2026, he is a co-editor of Rocket Stack Rank and spends his retirement exploring the problem of reading in a foreign language.

Career

  1. NowRocket Stack RankCo-editor
  2. 2000–2004MicrosoftSearch engineer

Education

  1. 2012University of WashingtonMA

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

  1. Among employers with 30+ full-time cases, OpenAI leads primary technical role H-1B pay at $310,000, and Amazon, Google and Microsoft file 57% of all casesIncludes Microsoft. Across 440,669 certified US H-1B filings from 44 employers (FY2020–FY2026), OpenAI leads primary technical role base pay at $310,000 and xAI leads overall base pay at $290,000.
  2. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Microsoft. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Microsoft. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  4. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Microsoft. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Greg Hullender yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. US5151950A - Method for recognizing handwritten characters using shape and context analysis - Google Patents patents.google.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. US6061472A - Method and mechanism to reduce handwriting recognizer errors using multiple decision trees - Google Patents patents.google.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. How do you spell Levenshtein? | Bing Search Blog blogs.bing.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Learning to Rank using Gradient Descent - Microsoft Research microsoft.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Fei Xia - Past Students faculty.washington.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. US8868471B1 - Evaluation of task judging results - Google Patents patents.google.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Awards | ICML Lille icml.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Six rules for writing about AI set out at Worldcon 75 – SEVEN CIRCUMSTANCES sevencircumstances.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Blogger: User Profile: Greg Hullender blogger.com. Checked 21 October 2026.