Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Kayak.com hires Zacharia as chief scientist

By Mass High Tech staff

Norwalk, Conn.-based travel search engine Kayak.com has named Giorgos Zacharia, an MIT Fulbright Scholar, as chief scientist. Zacharia has been hired to improve the efficiency, speed and personalization of Kayak.com products, using predictive modeling. He will be based out of the company’s technology headquarters in Concord.

Zacharia is the co-founder and former chief technology officer and chief scientific officer of Open Ratings Inc., a supply risk management solutions developer that was acquired by Dun & Bradstreet Inc. An MIT grad with four math and computer science degrees, he helped develop Stocknomics Ltd. and Emporics Capital Management LLC, two machine learning-driven hedge funds.

According to Kayak.com co-founder and CTO Paul English, the site, which was founded in 2004, differentiates itself from other travel search engines by displaying results in order of popularity and relevance to the user, rather than profitability.