The State of the USA represents a strategic investment in the underpinnings necessary for a 21st century civic dialogue and policy process where collective accountability for results is the norm rather than the exception.
Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation
Product Advisory Group
The State of the USA Product Advisory Group is composed of a number of experts on technology, human computer interaction and best practices for indicator systems. They will advise SUSA’s executive team on key decisions regarding the features and functionality of its website. The members include:
Co-Chairs:
Joel Gurin, Former Executive Vice President, Consumers Union
Marvin Langston, Co-Chair, Principal, Langston Associates, LLC
Senior Advisors:
William Allman, General Manager and Chief Content/Creative Officer, www.HealthCentral.com
John W. Trustman, Founder, 1dot0
Reed Agnew, ThoughtForm, Inc.
Troy Anderson, President and Chief Executive Officer, KnowledgePlex, Inc.
Peter Blair, Executive Director, Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, The National Academies
Marjory Blumenthal, Associate Provost, Georgetown University
Hank Conrad, Managing Partner, CounterPoint Corporation
David Epstein, Director, Public Sector Solutions, IBM Software Group
Joseph Ferreira, Jr., Professor of Urban Planning and Operations Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Daniel S. Gaylin, Executive Vice President for Health Research at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC)
Scott Gilkeson, Expert on Human Computer Interaction
Robert Groves, Director of the Survey Research Center, University of Michigan
Mike Harper, Chief Executive Officer, Fortisphere, Inc.
Michael Jensen, Director, Web Communications, The National Academies
Charlotte Kahn, Director, Boston Indicators Project
Donald Norman, Northwestern University and Nielsen Norman Group
Robin O’Malley, Senior Fellow and Program Director, H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics & Environment
Jane Ross, Director, Center for Economic, Governance, and International Studies, The National Academies
Ben Shneiderman, Professor of Computer Science and Founding Director, Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, University of Maryland
Zia Zaman, Executive Vice President, Global Marketing, Fast Search and Transfer ASA
Joel Gurin
Joel Gurin is an experienced leader in the nonprofit sector and in publishing. He combines a strong background in nonprofit leadership, deep experience in print and Web publications, and a special focus on health, medicine, and the environment.
Mr. Gurin was Executive Vice President of Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, for almost a decade. He led the core operations of this large, complex, and highly respected publishing and advocacy organization with a staff of 500 and annual budget of $200 million. Before becoming Executive VP, he was Science Editor and then Editorial Director for Consumer Reports and related publications.
During his career at CU, Mr. Gurin directed all information development, research, and publishing, all revenue-producing activities, strategic planning, fundraising, communications, administration and human resources, budgeting, and labor negotiations. He worked with CU's public policy experts to develop new programs combining information delivery, advocacy, and consumer activism.
Under his leadership, CU had the best financial performance in its history. He delivered a surplus of more than $20 million in his last year as EVP and quadrupled reserves to more than $80 million in less than four years. He also doubled fundraising revenue to reach $18 million annually from half a million active donors.
Mr. Gurin has extensive experience in consumer-focused communications and publishing. He transformed Consumer Reports magazine through a major redesign and repositioning, and launched and grew Consumer Reports' Web site, which now has 3 million active paid subscribers. He has developed both paid-subscription publications and foundation-funded public-interest programs, including Web sites on environmental issues and reducing prescription drug costs. He also reorganized the research, editorial, and publishing departments to support cross-media product development.
Before coming to CU, Mr. Gurin was an award-winning science and medical journalist. He was co-founder and Editor of American Health, the first health magazine to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. He has written and edited four books on health and medicine, covering medical research, nutrition, dieting, and the mind/body connection.
Most recently, Mr. Gurin was Senior Vice President, Rodale Interactive, where he developed online growth strategy for the country's largest health and wellness publisher.
Mr. Gurin received his B.A. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University, Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa. He lives in Scarsdale, New York with his wife Carol, a clinical psychologist, and their family.
Marvin Langston
Marvin Langston, principal, Langston Associates, combines 34 years of public service and five years of private sector service with degrees in engineering and public administration. Marv's broad background couples leadership, technical, and management skills with real world experience so that clients can learn how to successfully compete in today’s dynamic e-change environment. In private industry, Marv served as the COO of a small high-tech start-up, led large corporation IT transformation, initiated account management practices to unify customer trust relationships, and helped rebuild troubled system development programs. In government Marv served as the Navy’s first CIO, and as the DoD CIO, successfully led the Defense Department through the Y2K transformation. In these positions, he spearheaded the measured reform necessary to enhance both mission and business processes and earned the Government Computer Week magazine Executive of the Year award in 1999. At the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency he led future IT technology programs. Marv’s technical background began as a Navy technician where he maintained nuclear power, communication, radar, and data systems. Later as a Naval Engineering Officer he led design and development programs for missile, display, computer, communication, and network systems.
William F. Allman
William F. Allman is a media entrepreneur with more than 15 years experience in creating new ventures in interactive media and video, and a seasoned business manager able to create a strategic vision, bring it to fruition with ROI and quickly adapt to changes in the industry. He is currently general manager and chief content/creative officer of The Health Central Network.com, and is responsible for strategic planning and execution of content and marketing for the second-largest health site on the Web, www.thehealthcentralnetwork.com. His duties include management of more than thirty Web sites devoted to broad health themes or specific conditions, twenty-five of which were launched as part of a strategic initiative he forged to build out the company’s Web offerings with high-value traffic. Content includes hundreds of on-demand videos, social networking initiatives, and trusted medical information. William is responsible for the strategic vision of the Web sites, as well as execution of building, maintenance, marketing and monetization. Investors include Polaris Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Allen & Company and The Carlyle Group. He is a former senior vice president / general manager of Interactive New Media for Discovery.com, where his duties involved content creation, advertising, marketing and technology for fifteen Web sites for Discovery Communications, Inc., including Discovery Channel online, TLC online, Animal Planet online, Discovery Health online, Travel Channel online, and DiscoveryKids online. William planned and executed strategy, content and advertising for broadband video-on-demand, mobile devices, and interactive TV applications. He managed a staff of more than 100 with a budget of nearly $60M. During his tenure at Discovery.com Unique Visitors to the site grew 300% to 6MM, annual page views grew from 150M to 850M, and Discovery.com was the top ranked entertainment television Web site in the U.S., as measured by Media Metrix. He is also a former vice president / general manager at Discovery.com where he oversaw strategic planning, content creation, advertising, marketing and technology for Discovery Channel online. He created strategy and executed the launching of Web sites for more than a dozen DCI television networks, including the sites for DCI’s International television networks. He also managed Discovery Education and its Web site. Prior to joining Discovery.com he was managing editor at U.S. News Online where he conceived of, planned and launched U.S. News & World Report Online and edu.com, U.S. News’ college-education focused Web site. Prior to that, he launched a U.S. News site on Compuserve, the first national magazine to launch on the service and conducted the first live cybercast from the White House in history with then-Vice President Al Gore.
John Trustman
Mr. Trustman is an acknowledged pioneer and leader in the design, development and operation of retail to enterprise-scale interactive applications in numerous industries including healthcare, insurance, financial services and retail industries. He was the co-founder of and the visionary behind deNovis, and he and his team have worked closely with various members of the U.S. Senate to achieve breakthrough innovations and efficiency in the U.S. healthcare market. Mr. Trustman is the former senior vice president and chief information officer of Aetna Health Plans, the largest commercial health insurer in the United States. He was a senior vice president of Fidelity Investments where he developed the first online trading applications in the U.S. and Europe, pioneered the use of data warehousing for customer relationship management, and led the firm's efforts in internal trading and customer service applications in the US and internationally. Mr. Trustman began his career at United States Trust Company of Boston, MA, where he was senior vice president & chief information officer, and at Bain & Company, an international management-consulting firm, where he was a manager in the firm’s strategy practice. A writer, lecturer and independent strategy and technology consultant, Mr. Trustman holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar, and a BA from Yale University.
Reed Agnew
Reed Agnew is one of the three founding principals of Agnew Moyer Smith. A self-taught designer, he spent 13 years with Westinghouse, where he was associated with its Corporate Design Center—first as manager of Industrial Design and later as manager of the Design Services Group, which included graphic design. The Design Center was a unique, in-house consulting office, set up under the direction of outside consultants Eliot Noyes and Paul Rand. The Center provided design services to Westinghouse divisions worldwide for products, graphics, signage, packaging, interiors, and architecture. Since founding the firm with Don Moyer and Grant Smith, Reed has devoted his attention entirely to graphic design. He is specifically interested in integrating language and organizing information with visual concepts. His work has included diagrams, brochures, signs, annual reports, handbooks, and identity programs. He is also interested in computer technology and its application to design problem solving and production. This interest has led to a number of consulting assignments focused on computer technology and graphics, and most recently, to the design of user interfaces for computers. He is working on a book, tentatively entitled Why Things Don't Work (with homage to Victor Papanek), which is targeted for publication by Doubleday late in 2008. I am just starting to work on it. The target date is late 2008.
Troy Anderson
Troy Anderson is managing director of Knowledge Management and Interactive Applications at the Fannie Mae Foundation. He leads the Foundation's KnowledgePlex.org initiatives and all other Foundation Web properties. His newest venture at the Foundation is on a free online GIS application www.dataplace.org. Formerly, Troy was the president/COO of StockMaster, GM of Content Distribution and VP of Product Management at Red Herring, and SVP IT/Interactive at the Industry Standard, as well as a Crain Publishing's B2B eChampion of 2001. His experience in the housing and economic development arena stems from his extensive work with his tribe, the Coquille Indian Tribe, where he helped start up an economic development corporation that built 120 homes and created 500+ jobs. A Stanford BA/MA and Kellogg MBA, Troy also is the author of the Way of Go, http://www.wayofgo.com.
Dr. Peter Blair
Dr. Peter Blair joined the Division for Engineering and Physical Sciences as executive director in January 2001. At the time of his appointment he was executive director of Sigma Xi and an adjunct professor of Public Policy Analysis at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From 1983 to 1996 he served in several capacities at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, concluding as assistant director of the agency and director of the Division of Industry, Commerce and International Security. Prior to his government service, Dr. Blair served on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania and was co-founder and principal of Technecon Consulting Group, Inc., an engineering-economic consulting firm in Philadelphia. Dr. Blair holds a BS in engineering from Swarthmore College, an MSE in systems engineering and MS and PhD degrees in energy management and policy from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author or co-author of three books and over a hundred technical articles in areas of energy and environmental policy, regional science and input-output analysis.
Marjory Blumenthal
Marjory Blumenthal joined Georgetown University in August 2003 as associate provost, Academic. Her responsibilities range from campus-wide academic planning to oversight of selected academic units and diversity. Her portfolio has an international dimension, with oversight of International Initiatives and the Office of International Programs (OIP). Another theme is the enhancement of academic excellence, in part through oversight of the Gervase Programs (the Carroll Fellows Initiative, Fellowship Secretariat, Georgetown Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (GUROP), and Honor Council); the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS); the Kennedy Institute of Ethics; and new faculty orientation. She helped plan the reconceptualization of the School of Continuing Studies, and she has been leading efforts on the main campus to strengthen the sciences. She also teaches and advises students and others in Internet trends, impact, and policy. Between July 1987 and August 2003, she was the executive director of the National Academy of Sciences' Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB). She designed, directed, and oversaw collaborative study projects, workshops, and symposia on technical and policy issues in computing and telecommunications. These activities, involving groups of experts from academia and industry, influenced public policy as well as the scholarship or strategies of participants. Marjory is the principal author and/or substantive editor of numerous books and articles. She is a member of the advisory board of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the external advisory board of the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing at the University of California at Los Angeles, the science and society review panel for the National Science Foundation, and the board of directors of the Ballston Science and Technology Alliance. In 1998 Marjory was a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Laboratory for Computer Science. At MIT she developed and taught a course on public policy for computer science graduate students and pursued personal research interests. Marjory did her undergraduate work (Phi Beta Kappa) at Brown University and her graduate work (as an NSF Graduate Fellow) at Harvard University.
David Epstein
David Epstein is the director of Public Sector Solutions in IBM’s Software Group. In his current role he is responsible for providing business direction for its portfolio of solutions in the government, healthcare and life sciences industries. Most recently he oversaw the development of the Healthcare Collaborative Network and Rapid Response offerings. Prior to joining IBM’s Software Group, Mr. Epstein was a senior manager and research staff member in IBM’s TJ Watson Research Center where he and his team played a key role in the development of Internet standards. Mr. Epstein has broad industry and technical experience working with the healthcare, financial, insurance and entertainment industries, and developing visualization and graphics systems. Mr. Epstein began his career at BBN Labs where he was responsible for the development of large-scale, distributed, tactical training simulators. He received his AB and SM in Computer Science from Harvard University and his MBA from Columbia Business School.
Joseph B. Ferreira
Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA. Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. 2002. Courses of particular interest included: Control Systems, Product Design, Lean Manufacturing Techniques. Thesis: Using Spreadsheets to Parameterize Spur Gear Design for Laser Cutters. Created an Excel spreadsheet that would generate the outline of a gear, using the basic parameters of that gear (Number of Teeth, Pressure Angle, and Diametral Pitch) as inputs. Joseph could then fabricate the gear on a laser cutter from the outline. Relevant Experience: Mechanology, LLC: Engineer Intern, Attleboro, MA. Worked part time in 1999 and 2000, then full time from 2000 to 2001. He assisted the company in designing a Compressor/Expander for use in automobile fuel cells. Joseph modeled the numerous components in SolidWorks, and also designed and analyzed certain parts himself. The schematics he made were then used to manufacture the components for the test prototype. MIT, Pappalardo Lab: Researcher, Cambridge, MA. Summer of 1998. The project was to set up and experiment with a new Laser Cutter donated to the Pappalardo Lab. After cutting numerous shapes and materials, his work focused on improving the utility of the computer controls. This ultimately resulted in Joseph's thesis, a project to streamline the fabrication of spur gears for test mockups. MIT, Computer Resource Lab: Researcher, Cambridge, MA. Summer of 1995. The goal was to develop and test multimedia tools to aid in transportation planning. Joseph experimented with several ways of filming street intersections, then digitized and time-lapsed the video on a computer, allowing the traffic patterns over the course of a day to be easily analyzed. Skills: Computer: Pro/ENGINEER, Solid Works, Microsoft Word, Excel, Windows, MacOS, UNIX. Other Activities: Political Campaign: 2004. Volunteered for the John Kerry for President campaign in Boston.
Daniel S. Gaylin
Daniel S. Gaylin is Executive Vice President for Health Research at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). He has 20 years of health policy and research experience spanning government, the private sector, and not for profit think tanks. His work includes health services and health outcomes research, and he is a nationally recognized expert in program evaluation. At NORC, Gaylin oversees three health research departments encompassing a portfolio of over $40 million in annual revenues and a staff of 80 professionals. He also directs research projects on a wide range of topics including evaluating health plan performance under Medicare Part D, several national initiatives focusing on health information technology, a series of projects on prescription drug issues in Medicare, and a project to redesign HHS’s Healthy People 2010 Initiative into a prototype of Healthy People 2020, the primary health goals for the nation as we head into the next decade. Mr. Gaylin has a successful track record of building and managing talented, multi-disciplinary teams on complex data collection, analysis, and dissemination projects. His work spans a full range of methodological techniques including sophisticated multivariate quantitative analysis methods such as bootstrapping and instrumental variables to analyze survey and administrative data, to a wealth of qualitative research studies using case studies, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and consensus building techniques. He has authored over 30 peer reviewed publications in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and Health Affairs. He has conducted research for AHRQ, CMS, HRSA, ASPE, CDC, various NIH Institutes, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Kaiser Family Foundation, The California Health Care Foundation, and a host of other funders. In addition to his skills as a researcher, Mr. Gaylin has a far-reaching understanding of the technical, political, and budgetary issues surrounding federal programs and research and a demonstrated ability to discuss health services research with technical and non-technical audiences and to translate research and analysis into usable information for decision-making. He regularly briefs senior decision makers throughout the legislative and executive branches of Federal and State governments on the policy implications of health services research. Before joining NORC, Mr. Gaylin was Director of Research and Planning, Office of Health Policy, US Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to HHS Mr Gaylin was a Vice President at the Lewin Group and a Research Associate at the Urban Institute. Mr. Gaylin holds a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University.
Scott Gilkeson
Scott Gilkeson is an expert in the area of Human-Computer Interaction, including interface design, multimedia computing, technical management and systems analysis. He is also responsible for consulting and training. He is the director of Design, Eastern Region, at Cognetics Corporation, and in that capacity oversees a staff of designers working on projects from Boston to Atlanta. His industry affiliations include ACM, SIGCHI, UPA, and Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. His background is in User Interface Design and he has over 12 years of experience designing user interfaces for platforms like Microsoft, Macintosh, OS/2, UNIX/X-Windows (Motif), DOS, and VAX. He has designed applications for preschoolers to satellite network engineers, and he has worked with Dr. Ben Shneiderman at the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory. Scott has a MS in Computer Science from George Mason University. Scott's background in software engineering C++, Pascal, PLM, Fortran, BASIC and assembler - makes him a particularly skillful liaison between management and technical staff. Scott is also proficient with a number of tool kits for screen design and prototype implementation.
Robert M. Groves
Robert M. Groves is director of the University of Michigan Survey Research Center, professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan, research professor at its Institute for Social Research, and research professor at the Joint Program in Survey Methodology, at the University of Maryland. From 1990 to 1992 he was an associate director of the U.S. Census Bureau, on loan from Michigan. From 1992 to 2001 he was the associate director, then director of the Joint Program in Survey Methodology, a consortium of the University of Maryland, University of Michigan, and Westat, sponsored by the Federal statistical system. He is the author (with F. Fowler, M. Couper, J. Lepkowski, E. Singer, R. Tourangeau) of Survey Methodology (Wiley, 2004); chief editor of Survey Nonresponse (Wiley, 2002); author (with M. Couper) of Nonresponse in Household Interview Surveys (Wiley, 1998); author of Survey Errors and Survey Costs (Wiley, 1989) (named as one of the most influential books in survey research in the last 50 years by AAPOR); a co‑editor of Measurement Errors in Surveys (Wiley, 1991); chief editor of Telephone Survey Methodology (Wiley, 1988); the author (with R. Kahn) of Surveys By Telephone (Academic Press, 1979); and an author of many journal articles in survey methodology. He has investigated the impact of alternative telephone sample designs on precision, the effect of data collection mode on the quality of survey reports, causes and remedies for nonresponse errors in surveys, estimation and explanation of interviewer variance in survey responses, and other topics in survey methods. His current research interests focus on theory-building in survey participation and models of nonresponse reduction and adjustment. He is a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on National Statistics; the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Board of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Census Bureau; the advisory committee of the National Science Foundation Division of social, behavioral, and economic sciences; the expert advisory committee for the National Survey of Drug Use and Health; the board of directors of the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs; the executive council of the American Association for Public Opinion Research; and the steering committee of the Key National Indicators Initiative of the National Academies. Groves has an AB degree from Dartmouth College and a PhD from the University of Michigan. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, former president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, former chair of the Survey Research Methods Section of the American Statistical Association, and a winner of the 2000 AAPOR Innovator Award. In 2001 Groves was awarded the distinguished achievement award, the AAPOR award, by the association.
Mike Harper
Mike Harper has over twenty years of successful experience in general management, sales, marketing and corporate development with both start-ups and large public companies delivering high technology products and services. Mike possesses broad knowledge and experience in establishing new markets, developing new product strategies and growing businesses. Mike is currently operating his own consulting company, Pathway for Success, LLC, focused on executive and strategy services. He recently completed an engagement as an interim president for Syfact, Inc., a global software company delivering enterprise software and services for financial crime investigative case management. Prior to Pathway for Success, Mike was president and CEO of BNX Systems, a provider of identity and access management solutions providing single sign-on and strong authentication with a particular focus on biometrics. Under his leadership BNX experienced 600 percent revenue growth and improved net operating results by 250 percent before being sold to Citibank. Previously, Mike served as president and general manager of the Enterprise Application Business Unit at US internetworking, Inc. (USi), where he was responsible for the company's enterprise software ASP offerings. Mike was instrumental in building USi from a startup to the ASP market leader. During his tenure, Mike grew annual revenue in his business unit from zero to approximately $60 million with a contract value in excess of $200 million. Mike's other executive positions at USi included that of chief marketing officer. Prior to USi, Mike held various management positions at Silicon Graphics and IBM. Mike holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Tulane University.
Michael Jensen
Michael Jensen has been at the interface between digital technologies and scholarly/academic publishing since the late 1980s. In 2006 Michael was appointed director of Web Communications for The National Academies. Prior to that time he was director of Publishing Technologies at the National Academies Press, which makes more than 3600 books (more than 600,000 pages) from the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, fully browsable and searchable online for free (www.nap.edu). This site receives more than 1.5 million visitors per month, and boasts of some of the most advanced search and discovery tools available on any publisher's site, most of which were initially developed by Michael. In 2001, he received the National Academies' President's Award, its highest staff honor. Previously, Michael Jensen was electronic publisher at the Johns Hopkins University Press, and electronic media manager at the University of Nebraska Press. He has been involved in publishing on the Internet since 1989 and is a frequent speaker and consultant on electronic publishing issues. He has directed or guided such projects as the first searchable online publishers' catalog, a dozen major CD-ROM products, the Gallery of the Open Frontier, the online publication of several large reference works for Johns Hopkins University Press, The Johns Hopkins Online Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism (winner of the Association of American Publishers' 1997 "Best Electronic Product - Internet - Social Sciences/Humanities" award), and Walker's Mammals of the World Online, as well as the pioneering online journals project of the Johns Hopkins University Press, Project Muse, which made more than 5,000 articles from 42 journals available for institutional online subscription in HTML format.
Charlotte Kahn
Charlotte Kahn co-founded and is the director of the Boston Indicators Project at the Boston Foundation, Greater Boston’s community foundation. A partnership with the City of Boston and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the Boston Indicators Project tracks change across a comprehensive framework of ten sectors through an award-winning website. The Project also publishes a biennial summary of global, national, and regional trends affecting Boston and its metropolitan region based on sector convenings and research. The Project also issues a “report card” tracking progress on a shared civic agenda. Prior to her work on indicators at the Boston Foundation, Ms. Kahn directed the Boston Persistent Poverty Project, part of a six-city Rockefeller Foundation initiative. Earlier, she served as the executive director of an NGO dedicated to improving the quality of urban life, particularly in low-income neighborhoods, through open space planning and design and youth development and job training programs. Ms. Kahn attended Cornell University, holds a master's degree from Antioch University, and was awarded a Loeb Fellowship in Advanced Environmental Studies from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is a founding member of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., and of the Community Indicators Consortium, a global community of practice for people and organizations interested in advancing the art and science of community indicators.
Donald Norman
Don Norman is co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, an executive consulting firm that helps companies produce human-centered products and services. He is also professor of Computer Science, Psychology, and Cognitive Science at Northwestern University where he co-directs the dual degree MBA and master's in Engineering program between the Kellogg School of Management and the McCormick School of Engineering. He is professor Emeritus of both Cognitive Science and Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, where he was founding chair of the Department of Cognitive Science and chair of the Department of Psychology, and he was a faculty member at Harvard University. Norman was previously vice president of the Advanced Technology Group at Apple Computer and was the lead negotiator for Apple in discussions between the computer and television industries on the development of an Advanced Digital TV system for the United States. He was also an executive at both Hewlett Packard and UNext, a distance education company. He serves as advisor and board member to numerous companies and nonprofit organizations in the area of policy and education, including the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Chicago Institute of Design. Norman was one of the organizers of the Cognitive Science Society and has been chair of the society and editor of its journal, Cognitive Science. He has also been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Norman has received many awards for his work, including the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer & Cognitive Science, the Franklin V. Taylor Award for “outstanding contribution to the field of Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology” from the American Psychological Association, and the “Mental Health Award for contributions to business” from Psychology Today. He holds a BS degree from MIT and an MS degree from the University of Pennsylvania, both in Electrical Engineering. His doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania is in Psychology, and he has received two honorary degrees from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and the University of Padua in Italy. Norman has published extensively and is the author or co-author of fourteen books, including The Design of Everyday Things, Things That Make Us Smart and The Invisible Computer: Why good products can fail, the PC is so complex, and information appliances are the answer, and Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things.
Robin O'Malley
Robin O'Malley directs the Heinz Center’s Environmental Reporting Program, which publishes The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems: Measuring the Lands, Waters, and Living Resources of the United States. Mr. O’Malley came to The Heinz Center in November 1997 from the Department of the Interior, where he led U.S. Government efforts to establish a biodiversity information network throughout the Americas. From 1993 to 1996, he was chief of staff for the National Biological Survey, where he was responsible for numerous program development, budgeting, implementation, and outreach activities. Mr. O'Malley has also served as a special assistant to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt; deputy science advisor within the Interior Department; associate director for Natural Resources at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ); and senior environmental advisor to Governor Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey; he has also held a variety of environmental positions within New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection involving financing of environmental infrastructure, hazardous site remediation, and solid waste management. He holds a master’s degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor's degree from the State University of New York.
Jane L. Ross
Jane L. Ross is director, Center for Economic, Governance and International Studies, National Research Council of The National Academies. Previously, she was the deputy commissioner for Policy at the Social Security Administration (SSA). In that position she was an advisor to the Commissioner of Social Security on policy issues, as well as the leader of the policy analysis and research office. She spent several years as the director for Income Security Issues and senior assistant director for Medicare and Medicaid Issues at the U.S. General Accounting Office. Prior to that, Ms. Ross has been the deputy associate commissioner for Policy and the Director of the Office of Research, Statistics, and International Policy at SSA. She has served as a consultant to the social security system of Bulgaria on policy analysis and strategic planning matters. Ms. Ross has written and spoken on the long-range financing of social security, the role of social security in the financial security of women and the importance of financial planning for retirement. She was a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and is a member of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. She received her PhD in economics from American University.
Ben Shneiderman
Ben Shneiderman is a professor in the Department of Computer Science, founding director (1983-2000) of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, and member of the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland at College Park (full resume). He has taught previously at the State University of New York and at Indiana University. He was made a Fellow of the ACM in 1997, elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2001, and received the ACM CHI (Computer Human Interaction) Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. Ben Shneiderman's interest in creativity support tools led to organizing the June 2005 NSF workshop, and to chairing the June 2007 Conference on Creativity & Cognition. His comprehensive text Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction came out in its 4th edition in April 2004 with Catherine Plaisant as co-author. He is the originator of the Hyperties hypermedia system, which was produced by Cognetics Corp., Princeton Junction, NJ. Since 1991 his major focus has been information visualization, beginning with his dynamic queries and starfield display research that led to the development of Spotfire (Christopher Ahlberg, CEO). He is as member of the Board of Directors (1996-2001). Spotfire grew to 200 employees and during Summer 2007 was bought by TIBCO. Dr. Shneiderman developed the treemap concept in 1991, which continues to inspire research and commercial implementations. The University of Maryland’s Treemap 4.0, developed in cooperation with Catherine Plaisant, has been licensed by the HiveGroup, and remains available for educational and research purposes. Dr. Shneiderman remains as a technical advisor for the Hivegroup and he was a computer science advisor (1999-2002) to Smartmoney, which implemented the widely used MarketMap for stock market analyses. Later information visualization work includes the LifeLines project for exploring a patient history, and its successor project, PatternFinder, which enables search across electronic medical records. Searching for patterns in numerical time series data was enabled by three versions of TimeSearcher, which was applied for stock market, auction, genomic, weather, and other data. The Hierarchical Clustering Explorer supports discovery of features in multi-dimensional data, especially for gene expression data, using the powerful rank-by-feature framework. Two current projects focus on network visualization: Network Visualization by Semantic Substrates and Social Action. A new research project, based on the 911.gov article in Science, is devoted to emergency and disaster response: Community Response Grids. He is a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors Meeting – National Library of Medicine Lister Hill Center, the National Academies Committee on Technical and Privacy Dimensions of Information for Terrorism Prevention and Other National Goals, and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Networking and Information Technology Technical Advisory Group (TAG). In addition he has co-authored two textbooks, edited three technical books, published more than 200 technical papers and book chapters. His 1993 edited book, Sparks of Innovation in Human-Computer Interaction, collects 25 papers from the past 10 years of research at the University of Maryland. In 1999 he co-authored Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think with Stu Card and Jock Mackinlay, then in 2003 continued in this direction by co-authoring The Craft of Information Visualization: Readings and Reflections with Ben Bederson. Ben Shneiderman's vision of the future, presented in his October 2002 book Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies, won the IEEE 2003 award for Distinguished Literary Contribution. Leonardo's Laptop has been published in Chinese, Korean, and Portuguese editions.
Zia Zaman
Zia Zaman serves as executive vice president of global marketing at FAST, leading the global marketing and business development organizations, which includes channel strategy, product marketing, search business consulting, and strategic market development. He is responsible for the company's overall market strategy, vertical markets, emerging businesses, and messaging and is a member of the company's executive management team reporting directly to FAST’s CEO. Prior to joining FAST, Zia was a managing partner at Gartner’s North American Strategy Practice. Zia has also held senior management positions at Sun Microsystems in driving both M&A activity and developing the South Asian markets. Zia holds both a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and a Master of Science degree in operations research from MIT, and an MBA from Stanford University.