Ines Mergel, was the NCDG project coordinator and Post-Doctoral Research Fellow while pursuing a PhD candidate at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, where she has finished her course work for the doctoral program in Information Management.   Her interests include social networks and the diffusion and adoption of educational technologies.  Her empirical research includes extensive social network analysis in eLearning projects in Business Schools.  She developed several eLearning course curricula at the University of Kassel, Germany, where she graduated in business economics in 1999. She also developed instruction courses for Lotus/IBM, in Germany. At her home university, she was the project leader of StrategyLab, an internet portal on strategic management, which addresses both business and research issues. She is co-founder of a scientific network for women careers in academia (Incagroup), which is funded by the Swiss government and the founder of the virtual European Professional Network at MIT.