The 1,286 participants in the Elon University/Pew Internet 2004 Experts Survey were allowed to retain complete anonymity or they could enter their names while retaining the right to keep their answers anonymous; many longtime Internet luminaries chose to remain completely anonymous, and their names are not in the following compilation, nor are they used in any aspect of the final report. The survey respondents also had the opportunity to elect on each and every question they were asked whether or not they chose to have their name tied to their answer. The following list of more than 100 biographies is a sample to give a brief illustration of the expertise and background typical of most of the participants in this portion of the Imagining the Internet database. If you know of a specific person you would like to look up, click on the beginning letter of a predictor’s last name in order to take a short-cut to his or her biography:
Carol Adams-Means, University of Texas-San Antonio: Adams-Means researches the social migration of special populations to an information society; telecommunications policy; the use of new media by minorities; and the use of new-media strategies in education and business.
Lois Ambash, Metaforix Incorporated: Ambash is from New York, and in addition to being president of her own web PR company, she serves on the board of the Internet Healthcare Coalition and on URAC’s Health Web Site Accreditation Committee. She is a columnist for LLRX.com (a law and technology website) and a contributor to 2young2retire.com (a site for people seeking alternatives to retirement), and also contributes to other print and online venues.
Gary Arlen, Arlen Communications Inc.; Alwyn Group LLC: Arlen is president of his Bethesda-based research and consulting firm that specializes in interactive program content. He is known for his insights into the development of applications, especially interactive content for Internet, two-way TV and other emerging systems.
Reid Ashe, Media General, Inc.: Ashe is the president and chief operating officer of the most-converged news media company in the United States; Media General’s Tampa news operation, for instance, has its TV station, newspaper and online unit all sharing the same space and resources. Ashe had previously been an executive with Knight Ridder.
Rob Atkinson, Progressive Policy Institute: Atkinson is vice president of this think tank and the director of its “Technology and New Economy Project.” He was previously project director at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, and in 1995 he directed “The Technological Reshaping of Metropolitan America.” He is a board member or advisory council member of the Alliance for Public Technology, Information Policy Institute, Internet Education Foundation, NanoBusiness Alliance and NetChoice Coalition. He also serves on the advisory panel to Americans for Computer Privacy.
Gary Bachula, Internet2: Bachula is vice president for external relations for Internet2. Prior to that he was acting under secretary of Commerce for Technology at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he led formation of government-industry partnerships.
Paul Baker, Georgia Centers for Advanced Telecommunications Technology: Baker is a senior research scientist and the Wireless RERC Project Director of “Policy Initiatives” to support universal access. He is also an affiliate assistant professor at the George Mason University School of Public Policy in Fairfax, Virginia. His areas of research interest include public-sector information-policy development and state and local government use of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
Troy Barker, ICF Consulting: Barker works with a management, technology and policy consulting firm that develops solutions in regard to energy, environment, homeland security, community development and transportation.
Jordi Barrat i Esteve, Electronic Voting Observatory, Universitat Rovira i Virgili: Barrat i Esteve’s research is concentrated on e-voting. His university is located in Tarragona, Spain.
Christine Boese, CNN Headline News: Boese is also a cyberculture researcher and a columnist for CNN.com. She has also worked as a consultant and a college professor. Her areas of research interest include Cyberculture Studies, Weblogs, Social Network Computing, Interaction Architecture and Hypermedia & Multimedia Communication Theory.
Bill Booher, Booher & Associates: Booher served as deputy assistant secretary for Technology Policy at the U.S. Department of Commerce, chief of staff at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, George H.W. Bush’s policy advisory group on domestic and international telecommunications issues.
Mike Botein, Media Center, New York Law School: Botein is also one of the voices in the 1990-95 Predictions Database. He was founding director of the Communications Media Center at New York University Law School. His expertise in international telecommunications law and the regulation of cable television and new technologies have made him a valuable consultant to the FCC and the Administrative Conference of the United States. He wrote “International Telecommunications in the United States.” and “Cases and Materials on Regulation of the Electronic Mass Media.”
James Brancheau, vice president, Gartner Research: Brancheau’s experience includes work as an entrepreneur and founding principal of Solista Global – a global emerging-technology consulting firm, managing director of Solista-Europe and lead planner for major ITV launch, editor of O’Reilly learning series on Web Applications Development, CIO in the higher-education sector, software engineer and Web designer. He has been active in research centered on network technology since the early 1990s. He is an expert on the speed of adoption of new technologies and the new digital home.
Bradford C. Brown, National Center for Technology and Law: Brown is a columnist for InformationWeek and serves as chairman of the National Center for Technology and Law at the George Mason University School of Law. Topics of his columns have ranged from RFID to e-voting.
Jonathan Band, partner, Morrison & Foerster LLP: Band’s work for this Washington, D.C.-based law firm is concentrated in the areas of intellectual property, computers and software, privacy and Internet and new media.
Laura Breeden, director, America Connects Consortium, Education Development Center: Breeden’s group, ACC, was established by the U.S. Department of Education in 2000 to strengthen community technology centers. Previously, she was an independent consultant focusing on Internet strategies and organizational development. Her clients included SRI International, the Morino Institute, the James Irvine Foundation, and other leading institutions that study, develop, and promote the use of network technologies. From 1994 to 1996, Breeden was director of a highly competitive, multi-million-dollar federal grant program (now known as TOP) designed to demonstrate the benefits of the “information superhighway” in the public sector. Under her leadership, more than 200 organizations received a total of $60 million for innovative community projects.
Michael Buerger, Bowling Green University/Police Futurists International/Futures Working Group: Buerger has been a visiting Fellow at the National Institute of Justice, served as director of the Minneapolis Office of the Crime Control Institute, and was research director for the Jersey City (N.J.) Police Department. He is a charter member of the Futures Working Group (FWG), a collaborative agreement between Police Futurists International and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He is co-author of an FWG white paper on Augmented Reality (AR) systems for police.
Kate Carruthers, Carruthers Consulting: Carruthers’ consulting business is based in Australia, where she previously worked with the New South Wales Government as Program Director. She is a former chair of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society in NSW. She is on the steering committee for Females in Information Technology & Communications.
Eliot Chabot, senior systems analyst, House Information Resources: Chabot works for the information-technology office for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Gary Chapman, University of Texas at Austin: Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the graduate school for public policy at the University of Texas. He was executive director of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility from 1984 to 1991, and was director of CPSR’s 21st Century Project from 1991 to 1993, and he edited the CPSR newsletter from 1985 to 1993. His research has been funded for years by the National Science Foundation. He also wrote an internationally syndicated bi-weekly newspaper column on technology and society named “Digital Nation” for six years; it was published and syndicated by the Los Angeles Times. He has served on the selection committee for the Turing Award – the computer-science field’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, and chaired the five-member committee in 2004.
Stanley Chodorow, professor emeritus, University of California, San Diego: Chodorow is a historian who became the founding chief executive of the California Virtual University, a consortium of accredited institutions of higher education that offer distance-learning programs. He was provost of the University of Pennsylvania from 1994 to 1997. He is a board member with the Council on Library and Information Resources in Washington, D.C., and the Center for Research Libraries. He has also been an executive with Questia Media Inc., an online-information-resources company.
Ted Christensen, coordinator, Arizona Regents University: Christensen coordinates the development of e-learning at Arizona’s three public universities: Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona.
Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek: Claburn is a writer and editor at Information Week and formerly worked at New Architect, Wired and KQED-TV.
Ben Compaine, communications policy expert: Compaine is editor of the book “The Digital Divide: Facing a Crisis or Creating a Myth?” and is co-author of “Who Owns the Media?” He is a telecommunications expert and worked as a consultant for the MIT Program on Internet and Telecoms Convergence.
Noshir Contractor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Contractor is the principal investigator on a 3-year $1.5 million grant from National Science Foundation’s Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence Initiative to study the co-evolution of knowledge networks and 21st century organizational forms. Previously, he was a co-principal investigator on the National Science Foundation’s Project CITY (Civil Info-structure TechnologY), which examined infrastructure development and maintenance. His research has also been supported, in part, by grants from the Sloan Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and corporate sponsors including Apple, 3M, Steelcase, and Panasonic.
Susan Crawford, professor, Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University: Crawford is also a Policy Fellow with the Center for Democracy & Technology and a Fellow with the Yale Law School Information Society Project. Her research and teaching interests include cyberlaw and intellectual-property law. While working as a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (Washington, D.C.), she represented major online companies, start-ups and joint ventures, working closely with companies doing business in the domain-name world. She is on the board of directors of Innovation Network, a non-profit that helps other non-profits develop and share evaluation tools and know-how.
Michael Dahan, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel: Dahan is an Israeli-American political scientist living in Jerusalem and teaching at Ben Gurion University. His works include the paper “National Security and Democracy on the Internet in Israel.” He has led projects to foster peace in the Middle East through new technology. One is an e-mail project that links political science students at Cairo University and Hebrew University. A second, more ambitious project is the Middle East Virtual Community of Academics and Intellectuals, which seeks to provide neutral ground for the exchange of ideas among intellectuals and to explore ways in which to break down the resistance to normalization with Israel.
Peter Denning, chairman, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif.: Denning is author of an IT column for the Communications of the ACM. He has also been honored as an outstanding computer-science educator by the ACM. His area of research/teaching interest is the design of secure, reliable, dependable operating systems that meet performance requirements. His work is training officers to design and deploy information technology effectively.
Tobey Dichter, CEO, Generations on Line: Dichter founded this nonprofit Internet-literacy agency for seniors. She earlier worked as a vice president for public affairs at SmithKline Beecham.
Bill Eager, professional speaker: Eager is known for his presentations and workshops on business applications for the Internet. His is one of the voices in the 1990-95 Predictions Database. An Internet marketing pioneer, he wrote many books about the field, including the bestsellers “The Information Payoff” and “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Online Marketing.” While communications director at BASF, he was in charge of developing one of the first large-scale intranets in the United States.
Peter Excell, University of Bradford, UK: Excell is a professor of applied electromagnetics and director of research in the School of Informatics at the University of Bradford. He is also deputy director of UB’s Telecommunications Research Centre.
Margot Edmunds, Johns Hopkins Department of Health Policy and Management: Edmunds is also former senior program officer at the Institute of Medicine in Washington, D.C., and director of health policy for the Children’s Defense Fund.
Tom Egelhoff, smalltownmarketing.com: Egelhoff wrote a book about how small-town businesses can succeed in marketing and advertising and then put it up on his web site and continued sharing information. After 5 years the site had grown to more than 300 pages of free tips and articles for small-business owners, and it had 4 million visitors in 2003. Egelhoff found a worldwide niche for advice on a small scale when he put his business on the Internet.
Ted Eytan, MD, Group Health Cooperative: Eytan is medical director of Group Health’s online communications with patients – www.mygrouphealth.com.
Stan Felder, founder and president, Vibrance Associates: Felder’s organization publishes the health/medical websites hisandherhealth.com, newshe.com and ourgyn.com.
Howard Finberg, Poynter Insitute for Media Studies: Finberg, the director of Poynter’s e-learning project – has been a senior fellow at the American Press Institute’s Media Center, was a co-director of a year-long study on Digital Journalism for the Online News Association, and was named the Newspaper Association of America “New Media Pioneer” in 2000. A journalist for 30 years, he has worked at the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Arizona Republic. He is developing Poynter’s News University, an online training portal for journalists.
Charlie Firestone, The Aspen Institute: Firestone is executive director of the Communications & Society Program at Aspen, and has been there since 1989. The program focuses on the implications of communications and information technologies for leadership. He was previously director of the Communications Law Program at UCLA and president of the Los Angeles Board of Telecommunications Commissioners. The Aspen Institute offers seminars and special programs tailored to promote non-partisan inquiry and leadership development.
Joshua Fouts, executive director of USC Center on Public Diplomacy: Fouts is a co-founder and the former editor of Online Journalism Review, based at USC. He previously spent five years at Voice of America, where he worked at getting VOA online with RealAudio.
Dan Froomkin, washingtonpost.com: Froomkin writes a political column for the online version of the Washington Post and is also the deputy editor of niemanwatchdog.org, based at Harvard University – a project to encourage more-informed reporting by U.S. journalists. He also writes for the Online Journalism Review.
B. Keith Fulton, vice president, strategic alliances, Verizon Communications: Fulton was a senior telecommunications policy analyst before joining Verizon in 2004. He was a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce IPv6 Task Force, which examined issues associated with the next generation of the Internet protocol.
Simson Garfinkel, MIT; Sandstorm Enterprises; Technology Review Magazine; CSO Magazine: Garfinkel is one of the voices in the 1990-95 Predictions Database. A journalist, entrepreneur and international authority on computer security, he serves as chief technology officer at Sandstorm Enterprises, a Boston-based firm developing computer-security tools. He is a columnist for Technology Review Magazine and has written tech articles for more than 50 publications, including Computerworld, Forbes and the New York Times. He is the author of “Database Nation,” “PGP: Pretty Good Privacy” and many other books.
Christine Geith, Michigan State University: Geith is the director of product and business development at the Michigan State University Global Community Security Institute and was formerly executive director of E-Learning at Rochester Institute of Technology, building one of the largest online learning programs in the U.S. She is on the executive committee of the board of directors for the National University Telecommunications Network.
Dan Gillmor, technology columnist, San Jose Mercury News: In addition to being a longtime tech writer, Gillmor is the author of “We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People,” a book about the participatory and citizen media movement. He also writes a popular weblog.
Mark Glaser, Online Journalism Review: In addition to his writing about new media for Online Journalism Review, Glaser produces technology stories for the Online Publishers Association, CMP TechWeb, the New York Times Circuits section and Conde Nast Traveler.
Joshua Goodman, Microsoft Research: Goodman is a researcher in machine learning and language modeling at Microsoft who has been tasked to work on fighting spam. He also served as chairman of the second Conference on E-mail and Anti-Spam.
Moira Gunn, Tech Nation: Gunn was labeled the “grand dame of tech talk” in Wired magazine. She is the host of “Tech Nation,” National Public Radio’s only syndicated technology talk show. She also hosts technical webcasts online for corporations such as Marimba and Network Associates, and she has conducted tech interviews packaged for public-television programming. She holds advanced degrees in computer science.
Alex Halavais, University at Buffalo (SUNY): Halavais is graduate director for the informatics school at the University at Buffalo. He studies how social networks are formed on the Internet. He promotes the practice of “self-Googling” – establishing your own identity on the Internet, so when people search out information about you it will be accurate.
Bornali Halder, website officer, World Development Movement: Halder works with an organization that lobbies decision-makers to stop policies that hurt the world’s poor. It researches and develops positive policy options that support sustainable development.
Fred Hapgood, Output Ltd.: Hapgood is an accomplished freelance writer in technology and science, and his is one of the voices in the 1990-95 Predictions Database. He took on the role of moderator of the Nanosystems Interest Group at MIT, and wrote a number of articles for Wired and other tech publications of the early 1990s.
Fran Hassencahl, professor, Old Dominion University: Hassencahl works in the Department of Communication at Old Dominion, and is on the advisory board for InterculturalRelations.com. One of her specialties is Middle East affairs.
Brendan Hodgson, Hill & Knowlton: Hodgson is the director of Internet communications at Hill & Knowlton.
Robert Hughes Jr., University of Illinois – Champaign-Urbana: Hughes is an associate professor and extension specialist in the field of family relations. He is co-author of the chapter “Understanding the Effects of the Internet on Families: in M. Coleman & L.H. Ganong (eds.), “Handbook of Contemporary Families” and “Computers, the Internet and Families: A Review of the Role of New Technology in Family Life.”
Nigel Jackson, lecturer in public relations, University of Bournemouth, UK: Jackson worked as a staff member for a British political party and a member of Parliament, became a parliamentary lobbyist and consultant, led the communications departments of several organizations and now teaches public relations. His research interests include the Internet and e-mail. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of E-Government.
Ken Jarboe, Athena Alliance: Jarboe is founder of a non-profit, Washington, D.C.-based think-tank that focuses on the social and economic implications of the Internet. Its aim is to change policymakers’ thinking from the ways of industrial society, to those of the “networked society,” by the means of conferences, workshops, research groups, publications, reports and lectures. Areas of interest include digital empowerment and the digital divide. He is a former professor and University of Michigan policy/technology Ph.D.
Rich Jaroslovsky, senior editor, Bloomberg News: Jaroslovsky began his career as a Wall Street Journal reporter in 1975, served as White House correspondent and national political editor and became responsible for the Wall Street Journal/NBC News Polls in the 1980s. He created the Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition in 1994, and was executive director of editorial content for Dow Jones Consumer Electronic Publishing. He was the founding president of the Online Journalism Association.
Lyle Kantrovich, Cargill: Kantrovich is an Internet usability expert who works for the ag production company Cargill. He is also a blogger who shares his thoughts on usability, web design, information architecture and user experience practices at Croc o’ Lyle.
Daniel Kaplan, FING (France’s Next-Generation Internet Foundation): Kaplan is the founder and CEO of FING, a collective and open project focusing on future Internet uses, applications and services. He is also chairman of the European Institute for e-Learning (EifEL). He is a member of the European Commission’s e-Europe’s Experts Chamber, the French Prime Minister’s Strategic Advisory Board on Information Technologies (CSTI), and the board of the French Chapter of the Internet Society.
Ruth Kaufman, IBM: Kaufman is a web strategist based in IBM’s offices in White Plains, N.Y.
Mike Kelly, America Online: Kelly is a leading executive for one of the nation’s most-recognizable internet “brands.”
Yonnie Kim, chief researcher, Daum Communication Thinktank: Kim specializes in new-trend research and strategy development. Daum operates South Korea’s largest Internet portal.
Gary Kreps, chair, Department of Communication, George Mason University: Kreps also holds a joint faculty appointment with the National Center for Biodefense at GMU. Prior to his appointment at GMU, he served for five years as the founding chief of the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute.
Anne Laurent, associate editor, Government Executive Magazine: Laurent specializes in stories about entrepreneurial organizations, acquisition reform, results-based management and culture change and manages the Government Performance Project.
Douglas Levin, Cable in the Classroom: Levin is education-policy director for the group that represents the cable television industry’s commitment to education. He previously served as a principal research analyst with the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C., where he wrote national studies on the role of technology in education, including “The Digital Disconnect,” conducted on behalf of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. He also assisted in the development of three U.S. Department of Education National Education Technology plans.
Peter Levine, University of Maryland: Levine is a research scholar at the Institute for Philosophy & Public Policy and deputy director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, both at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. He formerly worked for Common Cause. His main interests are civil society, civic education, the Internet. He also works with the Prince George’s County Information Commons (a nonprofit website for the community, produced mainly by youth); The National Alliance for Civic Education ( as the person responsible for the website); and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium.
Graham Lovelace, managing director, Lovelacemedia Ltd., United Kingdom: Lovelace is founding director of his company, which be started after leaving the Daily Mail Group, where he was editorial director at Teletext Limited and director of Associated New Media. In the 1990s, he was a pioneer in Internet publishing and digital broadcasting in the UK. He worked as a senior editor and journalist at the BBC, Visnews (now Reuters TV), BSB (now BSkyB), ITN, Channel Four, the Press Association and Pearson regional Press. He is a regular commentator on new media in newspaper columns and in television and radio interviews.
Robert Lunn, FocalPoint analytics: Lunn worked as a senior research analyst on the 2004 Digital Future Report: Surveying the Digital Future, produced by the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future.
Shawn McIntosh, Columbia University/Netgraf: McIntosh is co-author of “Converging Media” and worked as an editor and freelance writer for newspapers and magazines in the UK, U.S. and Japan before working at Fathom, an online educational website made up of a consortium of academic institutions, museums and research organizations. He co-founded Netgraf, which examines issues and trends related to online journalism.
John B. Mahaffie, co-founder, Leading Futurists LLC: Mahaffie is a former principal of Coates & Jarratt Inc., a leading futures consultancy. He has been a futurist since the mid-1980s. Clients currently include the Coca-Cola Company, DuPont, General Motors, Nokia, Siemens, the National Security Agency and the World Bank. He is also a board member of the Association of Professional Futurists.
Michelle Manafy, Information Today, Inc.: Manafy is editor of EContent magazine & Intranets newsletter. She is a former associate editor of Emedia magazine. She has written about content development and distribution, streaming media, and audio, video and storage technologies.
Vikram Mangalmurti, Carnegie Mellon University: Mangalmurti works at the H. John Heinz School of Public Policy and Management. His research interests include security and privacy.
J. Scott Marcus, senior adviser for Internet technology at the Federal Communications Commission: Marcus previously served as chief technology officer at Genuity (GTE Internetworking) and does research in the economics and public-policy implications of network interconnection – backbone connections in particular. He specializes in the measurement and prediction of Internet usage, challenges of data network security and management of data networks. He served as a trustee of the American Registry of Internet Numbers from 2000 to 2002.
Jon Marshall, research fellow, University of Technology – Sydney: Marshall has done research on gender in online interaction and an ethnography of the mailing list “Cybermind”; his most recent publications include articles on the construction of the internet as “space” and on netsex in an online community.
Bob Metcalfe, Polaris Venture Partners: Metcalfe is a venture capitalist – an early stage investor in bio-, info- and nano-technology companies. He is the inventor of Ethernet and founded 3Com Corporation, the billion-dollar networking company. He was CEO of InfoWorld Publishing from 1992 to 1995 and wrote a popular column for information professionals for eight years. His is one of the voices in the 1990-95 Predictions Database. His books include “Packet Communication,” “Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing” and “Internet Collapses.”
Ezra Miller, Ibex Consulting, Ottawa, Canada: Miller’s fields of concentration in the consulting arena are eGovernment, ICT policy and economics.
Kirsten Mogensen, associate professor, Roskilde University, Denmark: Mogensen teaches in the Department of Journalism at Roskilde University.
Arlene Morgan, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism: Morgan, formerly assistant managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, is director of professional development at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Dan Ness, Metafacts: Ness is principal consultant at Metafacts, a market-research firm that solves customer challenges for high-tech companies such as Advanced Micro Devices, Adobe, Compaq, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Microsoft, MTV, Sony and Toshiba. He is a 20-plus-year veteran of the computer industry with extensive experience in both primary and secondary research. Over the last two decades, his research projects and programs have included more than 1.5 million interviews, including surveys of businesses and consumers, both domestically and internationally. He has participated in product design, launches, repositioning, branding, and pricing with most of the leading high-tech worldwide companies.
Mike O’Brien, The Aerospace Corporation: O’Brien founded and ran the first nationwide UNIX Users Group Software Distribution Center. He worked at RAND and helped build CSNET (first at RAND and later at BBN Labs Inc.). He now works at an aerospace research corporation.
Ahmet M. Oren, chairman, Ihlas Holding, Turkey: Oren, a leader at Ihlas, a major Middle East television and newsgathering organization based in Istanbul, has been a member of the board of directors for the International TV Academy and Interactive Television International.
Andy Opel, Dept. of Communication, Florida State University: Opel has written about Micro Radio and the emerging Media Activism Movement. He edited the book, “Representing Resistance: Media, Civil Disobedience and the Global Justice Movement” published by Greenwood Press.
George Otte, City University of New York: Otte is on the doctoral faculty of the Graduate Center Programs in English, Urban Ed, and Technology & Pedagogy and is director of instructional technology at CUNY.
Carlos Andrés Peña, Novartis Pharma: Pena is an expert on evolutionary computation in medicine.
Terry Pittman, executive director broadband markets, America Online: Pittman heads the broadband division of AOL. He is active as a member of TRUSTe’s board of directors – TRUSTe is a leading online privacy seal program. Pittman also founded Postmodern Media, a new-media consulting firm, was advertising director for Netcom and worked with BrightStreet.com. He is an expert on online privacy and has been an active participant in the privacy discussion since the mid-90s.
Louis Pouzin, Eurolinc France: Pouzin conceived and directed the Cyclades project at the Institut de Recherche d’Informatique et d’Automatique in France. This project laid the conceptual groundwork Vinton Cerf and others employed in building the Internet. Before that, Pouzin spent time at MIT and also worked for several large companies, including Chrysler, mainly in developing advanced operating systems. In 2001, Pouzin received the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) Internet Award for his work in Datagram networking.
Sam Punnett, president, FAD Research, Toronto, Canada: Punnett has worked in the field of interactive digital media since the 1980s. He has worked in the music business, social research, broadcast production, equities analysis, electronic game design, and for the last 9 years on strategy, marketing, and product development issues related to ebusiness. He has published numerous studies and written extensive commentary on new technology for both private companies and government agencies interested in Internet economy issues.
Brian Reich, strategic consultant, Mindshare Interactive Campaigns: Reich develops online strategies for issue coalitions and non-profit organizations. He is a former national Democratic political operative and Internet strategist. He was Vice President Al Gore’s briefing director in the White House and during Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. Reich also has a consulting firm, Mouse Communications, and is the editor of the political blog, Campaign Web Review (www.campaignwebreview.com).
Paul Resnick, University of Michigan: Resnick is conducting research with Bob Kraut, Sara Kiesler, Yan Chen, Loren Terveen, John Riedl, and Joe Konstan on the public good in online communities; the project is being funded by the National Science Foundation. He has also worked in the areas of online reputation systems and in studying Meetup.com and other “convening technologies.”
Howard Rheingold: Rheingold was one of the first writers to illuminate the ideals and foibles of virtual communities. In the 1990s, he published a webzine called Electric Minds. He wrote the books “Virtual Reality,” “Smart Mobs” and “Virtual Community.” He also was the editor of Whole Earth Review and the Millennium Whole Earth Catalog. He is a popular commentator on the human-to-human implications of the Internet.
Victor Rivero, editor/writer/consultant: A former editor of Converge educational technology magazine, Rivero is a journalist specializing in education technology.
Mark Rovner, CTSG/Kintera: Rovner’s work at CTSG is online fundraising, engagement and communications strategizing. He has spent his 20-year career working with fundraising projects in the nonprofit and political sectors. He previously served as a senior vice president at Craver, Mathews, Smith & Co. (CMS) where he was founding director of CMS Interactive, the firm’s Internet fundraising unit. At CMS, he oversaw online fundraising strategy for a number of the nation’s leading charities and advocacy groups, including Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Douglas Rushkoff, author/NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program: Rushkoff is one of the voices in the 1990-95 Predictions Database. The successful author is also a teacher in the New York University Interactive Telecommunications Program. This social theorist, journalist and software developer, wrote the book “Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace,” a best-selling portrait of the 1990s cyberculture. He edited “The Gen X Reader,” a collection of writings by the elusive, media-wary “slacker” generation. He also wrote “Media Virus! Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture,” “Exit Strategy” and “Coercion” and was a winner of the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. He is also the author of “Open Source Democracy,” written for the UK policy think-tank Demos.
Cheryl Russell, New Strategist Publications: Russell has been labeled the “patron saint of Boomer research.” She is the author of “The Baby Boom: Americans Born 1946 to 1964” and is the editorial director of New Strategist Publications. Her other books include “The Official Guide to the American Marketplace” and “Demographics of the U.S.: Trends of Projections.”
Liz Rykert, Meta Strategies Inc.: Rykert is president and founder of a Canadian consulting firm that develops digital strategies for governments. She drafted guidelines for the Canadian government to steer online consultation and engagement work for federal departments. She also completed a project for a group in Malawi to track AIDS/HIV work in Sub-Saharan Africa. One of her research/consulting areas has been digital democracy and advocacy-based citizen engagement.
Janet Salmons, Vision2Lead.inc: Salmons consults in organizational and leadership development. A new initiative, Elearn2Lead, focuses on leadership development and online learning. Current projects involve work with the Lynn University Institute for Distance Learning, Southeastern Community College Distance and E-Learning, the National Endowment for the Arts Theatre Program, and TechSoup. She is a frequent conference speaker – on and offline. She presented Virtual Learning Community: Training Staff & Volunteers for the Wired.org: Nonprofits and NGOs Work the Web online conference, and Online Communities to Enhance Learning for Your Organization, a one-week online event.
Bill Sanders, senior vice president, Paramount Television: Sanders was a co-founder of Big Ticket Television, a Paramount/Viacom company and developed its first eight on-air series. He developed an enhanced interactive version of “Judge Judy” for Web TV and also produced broadband trials for “Judge Joe Brown.” He developed one of the first TV-show-based websites – including online merchandising – in 1994. He worked as a vice president for West Coast programming for HBO, where he was supervising producer of the multiple Emmy-winning series “Dream On,” for which he developed online chat forums and an interactive CD-ROM game.
Alexandra Samuel is the Managing Director of the Dialogue Networks practice at Angus Reid Consultants: Dialogue Networks offers software and services that facilitate online consultations and public engagement activities in governments, businesses and NGOs. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University, where her research addressed the phenomenon of politically-motivated computer hacking, known as hacktivism.
Daniel Z. Sands, Zix Corporation and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School: Sands is an internationally recognized lecturer, consultant, and thought leader in the area of clinical computing and patient and clinician empowerment through the use of computer technology. He received the President’s Award from the American Medical Informatics Association for co-authoring the first national guidelines for the use of e-mail in patient care. In 2003, he was elected to the American College of Medical Informatics and was granted an IT Innovator award by Healthcare Informatics magazine for his leadership in advancing Electronic Patient-Centered Communication.
Jan Schaffer, executive director, J-Lab: Schaffer runs J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, based at the University of Maryland. She was a Pulitzer-winning reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer and was executive director of the Pew Civic Journalism Project before founding J-Lab at the University of Maryland.
Jorge Reina Schement, Penn State University: He is director of the Institute for Information Policy at Penn State. His book credits include “Tendencies and Tensions of the Information Age,” “Toward an Information Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” and “The Wired Castle,” a study of information technology in American households. His research interests focus on the social and policy consequences of the production and consumption of information. In 1994, he served as director of the FCC’s Information Policy Project. A member of the boards of directors of the Media Access Project, Libraries for the Future, and the Benton Foundation, he regularly leads seminars at The Aspen Institute.
David M. Scott, communications strategist, Freshspot Marketing: Scott founded Freshspot, which serves information-product and IT-service companies. He is a contributing editor for EContent Magazine, a source for strategies and resources for the digital content industry.
Tiffany Shlain, founder and chairperson, The Webby Awards: Shlain was named one of Newsweek’s “Women Shaping the 21st Century.” The Webby Awards are the leading international honors for websites. Shlain has also directed 10 films, including “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” an official selection at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, and “Less is Moore,” a profile of Intel founder Gordon Moore. She is also an expert commentator on Internet issues, appearing regularly on television and radio. She is a fellow of the Woodhull Institute, an organization that supports ethical women leaders for the next century.
Barbara Smith, Institute of Museum and Library Services: Smith is technology officer for a federal agency that offers support to all types of museums, libraries and archives.
Robert V. Steiner, American Museum of Natural History: Steiner is the project director for seminars on science at the American Museum of Natural History. It offers online courses to K-12 teachers across the United States in the life, earth and physical sciences as well as courses about broader trends. He also works with the Teachers College of Columbia University in the Center for the Study of the Science of Learning in Urban Educating Institutions.
William Stewart, LivingInternet.com: Stewart has worked as a program manager, system architect, system engineer, software engineering manager, software lead, computing center manager and university instructor. But the thing he’s known for is LivingInternet.com, a site first developed in 1996 and devoted to explaining and using the Internet. Many Internet pioneers have made contributions to the more than 500 pages on the site.
Gordon Strause, Judy’s Book: Strause works for Judy’s Book, a social-networking website founded in the Seattle area in 2004. It allows friends and co-workers to post personal reviews of mechanics, dentists, house painters, etc., they would like to share with their online community. He formerly worked at Firefly, Well Engaged and eCircles.
Kevin Taglang, consultant and telecommunications policy expert: Taglang’s clients include the Benton Foundation, whose mission is to articulate a public-interest vision for the digital age and to demonstrate the value of communications for solving social problems. He has published research on the digital divide.
Peter W. Van Ness, the Van Ness Group: The Van Ness Group, a web-development company, is the third technology-related venture for entrepreneur Peter Van Ness. He founded Personal Computer Solutions in 1983. During the 1990s, he co-founded StockPlan, Inc. and grew it from a tiny software startup into the largest independent provider of stock-plan management services worldwide; there, he and his team built the first systems for employees to exercise and sell their stock options over the Internet. In 2000, he co-founded MyStockOptions.com, winner of numerous awards and the Web’s most comprehensive, respected, and frequently visited resource on stock compensation.
Egon Verharen, innovation manager, SURFnet: Verharen works for the Dutch national education and research network. He was previously an assistant professor of information technology at Infolab at Tilburg University.
Rose Vines, freelance technology journalist: Vines writes for Australian PC User and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Philip Virgo, EURIM and IMIS: Virgo is secretary general of EURIM, the UK-based European Information Society Group, and he is also associated with IMIS, a UK-based professional body for management of information systems. He wrote a research study that projected “The World and Business Computing in 2051.”
Barry Wellman, University of Toronto: Wellman’s research examines virtual community, the virtual workplace, social support, community, kinship, friendship and social network theory and methods. He directs NetLab and does research at the Centre for Urban and Community Studies, the Knowledge Media Design Institute, and the Bell University Laboratories’ Collaborative Effectiveness Lab. He has been a Fellow of IBM’s Institute of Knowledge Management, a member of Advanced Micro Devices’ Global Consumer Advisory Board, and a committee member of the Social Science Research Council’s Program on Information Technology, International Cooperation and Global Security. He is the author or co-author of more than 200 articles, co-authored with more than 80 scholars, and is the (co-)editor of three books. He is conducting a “Strong Ties and Weak Ties On and Offline” study for the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
David Weinberger, Evident Marketing, Inc.: Weinberger is a writer, speaker and consultant on Internet communication, publishing and marketing and a columnist for MIT Technology Review, Darwin Online, Intranet Design and Knowledge Management World and has been a frequent commentator on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and “Here and Now.” He is one of the voices in the 1990 to 1995 Predictions Database. His one-person consulting company has served a wide range of IT clients, including Sun Microsystems and Esther Dyson’s Release 1.0. He is a co-author of “The Cluetrain Manifesto” and author of “Small Pieces Loosely Joined,” both about the Internet. He’s a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Institute for Internet and Society. He writes several weblogs and was senior Internet adviser for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign.
Mike Weisman, attorney based in Seattle: Weisman, an active leader of the advocacy group Reclaim the Media and a community technology activist in the Seattle area, represented the Center for Digital Democracy and Consumer Federation of America in hearings regarding the AT&T Comcast merger. He was the program director for the 2003 conference of the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.
Pamela Whitten, Michigan State University: Whitten is an associate professor in the Department of Telecommunications at Michigan State and is a senior research fellow at its Institute of Healthcare Studies. Her research focuses on the use of technology in health care, and her research projects range from telepsychiatry to telehospice and telehome care for COPD and CHF patients. She serves on the board of directors of the American Telemedicine Association.
Mike Willard, chief executive officer of the Willard Group: Willard heads Burson-Marstellar’s affiliate in Eastern Europe. He has been a newsman, political and policy advisor to U.S. senators, senior public relations counselor and entrepreneur. He is a specialist in crisis communications and management, and served as a communications and domestic and foreign policy advisor to U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd and as a consultant to Senator John D. Rockefeller, when he was a governor.
Roland B. Wilson, Indiana State University: Wilson works in IU’s Languages, Literatures & Linguistics Lab
Michael Wollowski, professor, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology: Wollowski is an assistant professor of computer science and software engineering.
Steve Yelvington, Morris Digital Works/Morris Communications: Yelvington put the Minneapolis Star Tribune online in 1994. He became executive editor of Cox Interactive Media in 1999, and now he is vice president of strategy and content for the interactive division of Morris Newspapers, whose newspaper web sites have won more awards than any other newspaper chain in America. In 2001, the Newspaper Association of America presented him with its New Media Pioneer Award.