Mentoring
Dissertation Committee Chair
Julio Angel Ortiz
Ph.D. Recipient
Graduated August 2008
Julio Angel Ortiz is a Ph.D. Candidate in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State. Mr. Ortiz’s work encompasses the study of the development and deployment of municipal wireless broadband networks in regards to their potential impact on communities, quality of life, and digital social inclusion. Mr. Ortiz is fundamentally interested in the intersection between new technologies and social justice. Mr. Ortiz holds degrees from Penn State in Management Science & Information Systems, French and International Relations. Mr. Ortiz has been awards several honors. In 2005 he was named an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. In 2004 he was named a Button-Waller Fellow. He has also been a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. He has presented his work at several professional venues including, Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, Americas Conference on Information Systems, The Special Interest Group of the Association for Computing Machinery on Management of Information Systems and Computer Professionals Research, The Information Resource Management Association Conference. Mr. Ortiz intends to complete his doctoral work in the summer of 2008 and will seek a position in the academe.
Edgar Maldonado
Ph.D. Recipient
August 2009
Edgar received his doctorate from Penn State University of Information Sciences and Technology in 2009. He has an undergraduate degree in Electronic Engineering from Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela. Before entering graduate school, Edgar worked as a software support engineer for banking networks, with projects in Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama.¡, Guatemala, and Cyman Islands. Edgar’s research include policies of Open Source Software adoption in developing countries, education policies, and their influence in the development of knowledge based societies and economies, and learning theories for information technologies. Edgar’s work has appeared in: Computer and Entertainment and the American Sociological Association. Science, Knowledge, and Technology Newsletter. Edgar’s as participate in the following conferences: the IFIP Working Group 8.2 International working conference (2006), the Special Interest Group of the Association for Computing Machinery on Management Information Systems (SIGMIS-CPR) (2006 and 2007), The Information Resource Management Association (2006), and The American Association for the Advance of the Science graduate student conference (2007).
Bridget Blodgett
Co-advising with Dr. Mary Beth Rosson
Ph.D. Candidate
Degree Expected August 2010
Bridget is currently a Ph.D. Candidate of Information Sciences and Technology. Bridget is fundamentally interested in collaborative behavior in technology-enabled spaces. Her research into collaboration focuses on scientific collaboration enabling virtual scientific organizations as well as collaboration between avatars in purely virtual environments. Her dissertation research focuses on how technology impacts protest movements in virtual worlds. Her research interests include the development of virtual communities and the social issues that have arisen around these technologies as well as large-scale group collaboration in such spaces. Bridget has presented her work at the Communities and Technologies and the Playing to Win conferences, published her work in Database for Information Systems Research.
Degree received August 2009
Michael is a third year doctoral student in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at The Pennsylvania State University. Currently he is in the process of drafting his dissertation proposal and expect to have that process completed early in the Spring of 2008. He engages a social informatics perspective in his research, and his particular interest is on how organizations shape and are shaped by the technology they use. His research to date has focused on the design, development, and use of information systems for interoganizational collaboration among law enforcement agencies. Building on this work, he seeks to study how organizational identity impacts organizational ICTs post-implementation. Specifically, how does an organization’s identity influence its employment of ICTs and what lessons me we draw from the study of this influence apply to the design of future systems? Other scholarly interests include blogging and socio-political discourse, information policy and law, digital government, electronic commerce, gaming, and the philosophy of science.
Louis-Marie Ngamassi
Ph.D. Candidate
Defended Dissertation Proposal
Louis-Marie Ngamassi, a graduate of the University of Yaoundé (B.S.) and Pace University in New York (M.S.) is currently a doctoral student in Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University, College of Information Sciences and Technology. His area of research is Information and Communication Technology for development of Africa. Louis-Marie has a long working experience that has always involved computer-related responsibilities and has carried him across a variety of work environments. His career started in late 1985 when he was recruited as Computer Analyst and Programmer by BERIAC, one of the two leading software engineering companies in Douala (Cameroon) at the time. In 1989, he was then hired from BERIAC by USAID-Cameroon where he held the position of head of computing unit in a USAID sponsored project. At the end of this project in 1993, he joined the University of Dschang, Cameroon as Head of the Computer Division.
Louis-Marie Ngamassi has been a Fulbright and a United Nations Fulbright Fellow. He is also recipient of numerous scholarships and awards from organizations such as USAID and the French Agency for Technical and Cultural Cooperation (ACCT).
Jinsung JangPh. D Candidate
Co-Advising with Don Schemanski J.D.
B.A. in Business Administration, Yonsei University (2002) Jinsung is a Ph.D. Candidate, Fulbright Fellow (2007~) and Robert W. Graham Endowed Graduate Fellow (2008). He is currently working toward his proposal defense and his research revolves around legal and policy issues over IT services, focusing on consumer protection and economic/social efficiency.Before joining the IST, he worked as a research analyst at Korea Financial Telecommunications & Clearings Institute (KFTC), the national automated clearing house (ACH), which operates core national and international retail electronic banking networks in cooperation with the Bank of Korea (BOK). During the four year period at KFTC, Jinsung researched various issues (e.g., stability, efficiency, security, etc.) in the nation’s payment system, electronic banking, publishing more than twenty working papers, most of which were referred to by policy-making agencies, financial/banking industry, and academia. He has been a member of Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) as a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) since 2006.
Ibrahim Yucel
PhD candidate
Degree expected 2010
Ibrahim Yucel is a prolific researcher in the area of Video Games and Their impact on Information Technology. He has published and presented work on Gender, Design, Trends, and Communities and how they all intersect with Video Games technology and community. Ibrahim has programming, research, and design skills which lead him to a wide array of research and projects. He also currently advises the game design club at PennStateUniversity’s College of information Sciences and Technology. Most recently he has presented at Meaningful Play, PennState’s TLT symposium, GLS and will be presenting to the American Sociological Association.
Kartikeya Bajpai
Graduate Student
Kartikeya Bajpai is a first year student in the Doctoral program at the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University, University Park Campus. Prior to joining IST, Kartikeya completed a Master’s degree in Information Systems and Operations Management at the University of Florida. Kartikeya also holds an Undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Trichy.
Master’s Committee Chair
Michael Colibraro
M.S. Recipient
Graduated December 2008
Mike completed his Masters Degree in Information Sciences and Technology. His undergraduate degree is also in Information Sciences and Technology but he chose to pursue a M.S. in order to study the social aspects of technology. His work looked at large online communities; how they form and organize, and how their use of particular types of information communications technologies structures their interactions. Specifically he focused on massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) because of their growing popularity and the fact that they provide a rich visual aspect to online interactions.
Bryan Ollendyke
M.S. candidate
Degree expected Summer 2010
Bryan is a graduate of the IST undergraduate program and the e-Learning Institute’s Instructional Web Technology Specialist. He is currently working on his Masters Thesis research on the diffusion of open source innovations in large organizations.
