ITM Department - Faculty Spotlight

Drs. Hong-Mei Chen and Rick Kazman have been making an impact internationally. Dr. Chen’s expertise in Business-IT alignment and Dr. Kazman’s on economics-driven analysis and evaluation of software architecture have been sought after in industry as well as in academia. Two recent examples:

In October, they were invited to give a series of talks in Korea: 1) by subsidiaries of the nation’s three largest conglomerates: Samsung SDS, SK C&C, and LG CNS, 2) by a symposium organized by KOSTA (Korea Software Technology Association) and KIPA (Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency), attended by over 300 people and with simultaneous English-Korean translation, and 3) by Korea University. During these visits their expertise was consulted by top executives of these companies, including the Chief Technology Officer of Samsung SDS, the CEO and the Vice President of SK C&C, and the Chief Architect of LG CNS.

In August, they traveled to Finland to give invited talks to: Nokia Corporation, OP Bank Group (the largest financial services company in Finland), an association of the Finnish telecommunications industry, and a European Union Enterprise Architecture industry forum. On each of these occasions Drs. Chen and Kazman gave advice to government and industry practitioners and researchers. They met with top corporate executives as well as government officials of the Finance ministry. Finally, they were invited to give short courses at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland, and had a productive research exchange with their faculty.

Chen @ Nokia

Other Faculty News

Ralph Sprague, Jr. was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Information Systems at the AIS conference in Milwaukee in December, 2006. The AIS Fellow award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the Information Systems discipline in terms of research, teaching, and service. A Fellow need not have excelled in all three categories. Nonetheless, she or he is expected to have made exceptional contributions in at least one of these categories and to have made significant contributions in the other two categories. A Fellow is also expected to have made significant global contributions to the Information Systems discipline as well as outstanding local contributions in the context of their country and region. AIS Fellows are expected to be a role model and an inspiration to colleagues and students within the discipline. In addition, they should be capable of commanding the respect of individuals from outside the discipline who from time to time have an interest in the discipline. AIS Fellows should be esteemed for their high levels of professional and personal integrity.