NATIONAL CENTER FOR DIGITAL GOVERNMENT
 Integrating Information and Institutions

Participants' Bios

Executive Committee members:

Eugene Bardach, is Professor of Public Policy at the Richard & Rhoda School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. He focuses primarily on policy implementation and public management, and most recently on problems of facilitating better interorganizational collaboration in service delivery, e.g., in human services, environmental enforcement, fire prevention, and habitat preservation. He also maintains an interest in problems of regulatory program design and execution, particularly in areas of health, safety, consumer protection, and equal opportunity.

Lawrence E. Brandt, is the Program Manager for a research program in Digital Government at the National Science Foundation. That program has been developed to explore R&D opportunities in Federal information services. Under his direction in 1994, the Federal World-Wide Web Consortium was established to link the information research community to NCSA's software development activities.

Paul DiMaggio is Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, as well as faculty associate at the Woodrow Wilson School and Research Coordinator of the Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies (directed by Professor Stanley Katz). DiMaggio has written extensively about issues in social organization and about the arts and cultural policy. His research and teaching interests include organizational analysis, sociology of culture, social stratification, economic sociology, network analysis, sociology of art and literature, and nonprofit organizations.

Jane Fountain is Associate Professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and Chair of the Digital Government Workshop. Her current research focuses on the relationship between organizations, information technology, and governance.

Stephen Goldsmith, Professor of the Practice of Public Management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, who served as mayor of Indianapolis from 1992 until 1999, is a management consultant with Lockheed Martin IMS and a Special Advisor to President George W. Bush on faith-based and not-for-profit initiatives.

Valerie Gregg is Program Manager for the Digital Government Program at the National Science Foundation.

Eduard Hovy currently heads the National Language Group at the Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California. In general, he is interested in all facets of communication, especially language, as situated in the wider context of intelligent behavior.

Steven Kelman is Albert J. Weatherhead III and Richard W. Weatherhead Professor of Public Management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Kelman's research focuses on public sector operations management, with a focus on organizational design and change. He is currently researching the spread of procurement reform innovations at the working levels of government organizations.

Sue Stendebach is a Program Manager in the National Science Foundation's Digital Government Research Program, on assignment from the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Atmospheric Programs. In her NSF role, Sue's primary objective is to build an environmental component to the Digital Government Research Program, catalyzing new collaborations between academia and EPA, as well as other environmentally-oriented government programs.

Workshop Participants included:

Stuart Bretschneider is the Director of the Center for Technology and Information Policy and Professor of Public Administration at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. His research interests include information management in public organizations, revenue forecasting, technology transfer and the diffusion of new technology, and administrative delay and red tape in public organizations.

Noshir Contractor is Professor of Speech Communication and Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is currently investigating factors that lead to formation, maintenance, and dissolution of dynamically linked knowledge networks in work communities. He is the Principal Investigator on a major three-year grant from the National Science Foundation’s Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence Initiative to study the co-evolution of knowledge networks and 21st century organizational forms.

David Lazer, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, teaches courses on management and executive branch politics. Lazer has written on the spread of innovation and communication within government and between governments, and is currently studying the integration of DNA technology into the criminal justice system.

Norman Lorentz joined the Office of Management and Budget on January 2, 2002 as Chief Technology Officer, the principal e-government architect for the Federal government. A senior executive with a thirty-year track record for innovative solutions, Lorentz is responsible for identifying and developing support for investments in emerging technology opportunities that will improve the government's technical, information, and business architects.

Gary Marchionini is the Cary C. Boshamer Professor at the University of North Carolina's School of Information and Library Science where he teaches courses in human-information interaction, interface design and testing, and digital libraries. His research interests include information seeking, human-computer interaction, digital libraries, information design and information policy.

Brinton Milward is the McClelland Professor of Public Management, College of Business and Public Administration and Professor of Public Administration and Policy (jointly appointed in the Department of Management and Policy) at the University of Arizona. His research interests include governance, public and nonprofit organizations, health and mental health service systems, and interorganizational theory.

Carlos Osorio is Research Associate at the Information Technologies Group at the Center for International Development at Harvard University, and Visiting Research Scientist at MIT Media Lab. His research interests include the study of alignment of readiness factors for e-government in developing countries, policies for diffusion of technologies, and privacy-enhancing technologies in digital environments.

Laurence O'Toole is is the Margaret Hughes and Robert T. Golembiewski Professor of Public Administration in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia. He also serves as senior research associate in the Carl Vinson Institute of Government there. He is the author or coauthor of many studies focusing on policy implementation and public management in complex institutional settings, policy networks, and environmental policy and management. His most recent book is Advancing Public Management (Georgetown University Press, 2000, co-edited), and he is co-editor of the new Johns Hopkins Series in Governance and Public Management, with the Johns Hopkins University Press.

R. Karl Rethemeyer is Assistant Professor of Public Administration and Policy at SUNY-Albany's Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy (September 2002) and a Ph.D. Candidate in the Kennedy School of Government. Rethemeyer's research focuses on the Internet's effect on state-level policy networks, interorganizational networks generally, and social capital.

Maria Scharf is a Fellow at the Center for Business and Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a PhD candidate at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, where she previously coordinated the Center of Excellence for Electronic Government. Her research focuses on the relationships between knowledge transfer and the use of information technology in government agencies.

Charlie Schweik is Assistant Professor with the Department of Natural Resource Conservation and the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has two main research interests: (1) the human dimensions of environmental change, specifically applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and satellite image analysis to study human incentives, actions and environmental outcomes, and (2) information technology use and management in public sector organizations. Prior to academia, he worked as a programmer and project manager for IBM and as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy.

David Stark is the Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Columbia University, where he directs the Center on Organizational Innovation. He is an External Faculty Member of the Santa Fe Institute. A major contributor to the new economic sociology, Stark examines problems of worth and value in various organizational contexts.

Nicole Steckler is an Associate Professor at the OGI School of Science & Engineering at the Oregon Health & Science University. Her research interests include tools for diagnosing and improving leadership effectiveness, roles in implementing (and resisting) organizational change, interpersonal communication and influence in organizations, and lateral coordination in organizations.

Anthony Townsend is a Research Scientist at the Taub Urban Research Center at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.Currently, he is completing a Ph.D. dissertation at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, focusing on the geography of digital communications networks and their implications for urban development.

James Van Wert currently works for the U.S. Small Business Administration as Senior Advisor for Policy Planning and E-Government with principal responsibility for implementing the Results Act and Electronic Government. His primary tasks are to implement the Administration's five part management reform agenda, coordinate the Agency's efforts at building e-government applications for small and medium enterprises, and lead the cross-agency, intergovernmental effort to create a Business Compliance Assistance One-stop.

Richard Varn is the Chief Information Officer for the State of Iowa and Director of the Information Technology Department. He is responsible for information technology operations and policy for the state and works directly for Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack. In this role, he has become a nationally recognized leader in information technology management, privacy issues, and digital government.

Janet A. Weiss is the Mary C. Bromage Collegiate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Public Policy at both the University of Michigan Business School and the School of Public Policy. Her research is focused on public management and public policy.

Darrell West is the Director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions and the Center's Public Opinion Laboratory at Brown University. He is also the John Hazen White Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Political Science. His current research focuses on e-government and policy making; he is also studying the effect of television advertising and mass media on election campaigns.