Christoph Bussler is research professor and executive director of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at the National University of Ireland in Galway. Previous to his current position he was a Principal Member of Technical Staff at the Oracle Corporation's Integration Platform Architecture Group based in Redwood Shores, CA, USA. Prior to Oracle Christoph was Architect at Jamcracker, Inc. in Sunnyvale, CA, USA, responsible for Jamcracker's application service provider (ASP) integration and aggregation architecture. While at Netfish Technologies, Inc. in Santa Clara, CA, USA, he was responsible for the architecture and development of Netfish Technologies' B2B integration server in the role of Technical Director of Engineering. Christoph had the role of Advanced Computing Technologist at The Boeing Company's Applied Research and Technology group based in Seattle, WA, USA. As project manager of the Workflow Management project he was responsible for conducting workflow research, transferring workflow technology into The Boeing Company, applying workflow technology in workflow projects and representing The Boeing Company in standardization efforts. As engineer at the Digital Equipment Corporation's Activity Management Group, Mountain View, CA, USA, Christoph developed a Policy Resolution Architecture and its prototype implementation for Digital's workflow management system product.

Christoph was faculty member at the Database Chair of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, where he earned his Ph. D. degree in the area of workflow management. His research work concentrated on workflow management and organization modeling, with a focus on organizational embedding of workflow management and architectures of execution infrastructures for enterprise-wide deployment of workflow management. Research results were implemented in the workflow management system prototype MOBILE, a transaction monitor based system. While at Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, he developed a distributed reliable infrastructure for workflow execution based on persistent queuing. He holds a Master of Computer Science from the Technical University of Munich, Germany, where he contributed to the workflow management research project ProMInanD that was funded by ESPRIT.

Christoph Bussler has published two technical books (one of which he co-authored) on workflow management as well as several book chapters. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers in international conferences and journals.

Akhil Kumar is Associate Professor of Information Systems at Penn State University. Before joining PSU in 2002, he taught information systems courses in the College of Business at the University of Colorado. He has a Master's in Computer Science (1986) and a Ph.D. in Information Systems (1988) from the University of California, Berkeley. Before that he received a B.S. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi and a MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Prior to joining the University of Colorado in 1994, he was a faculty member at Cornell University from 1988 to 1994. He has also worked full-time in industry for four years. During the 2000-2001 academic year he was a visiting scientist at Bell Labs Research, Murray Hill, NJ.

His research interests are in various aspects of database systems, distributed information systems and intelligent systems, e.g., replication and concurrency control, data mining, online analytical processing, data structures for spatial data, and workflow systems.

The workflow projects Mr. zur Muehlen participated in include in a long-term business process redesign project of Germany’s second largest facility management company, the identification of workflow-fit processes as well as the selection and introduction of a workflow management system at a large German public utility enterprise and the introduction of an ERP-based workflow management system (SAP Business Workflow) for the invoice auditing process of an industrial enterprise.

Mr. zur Muehlen has authored numerous publications on meta modeling, workflow and process management in both national and international journals and conferences. His main research interests include organizational aspects of workflow management systems, meta modeling, process and resource management.

As a senior lecturer and Assistant Professor, Mr. zur Muehlen has taught courses on business process modeling and workflow management, Java-based software development, organizational modeling, systems analysis and design and data management. Together with Professor Yvonne Antonucci (Widener University) he has been awarded two curriculum development grants by SAP USA for the design of an international collaborative course on B2B process integration.

He is a member of the Association for Information Systems (AIS), the German Computer Society (GI), IEEE, and the Technical Committee of the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC). Mr. zur Muehlen is chairman of the WfMC working group “Resource Model”.

Mr. zur Muehlen holds a Ph.D. and a MS in Information Systems from the University of Muenster, Germany.

Prior to his recent appointment at Stevens Institute of Technology, Mr. Nickerson was active in industry. As a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, he ran a group focused on advanced technologies, and performed consulting related to software design with many companies and government entities. He effectively disseminated information about the use of advanced technologies by consulting to over 50 large companies, and trained thousands of internal partners and consultants in the potential uses of new technologies. Related to this proposal, he has experience with many large enterprise systems architectures. Prior to PwC, Dr. Nickerson worked on Wall Street – he was an Associate Director at Bear Stearns, and a Vice-President at Salomon Inc. He was responsible for designing and building some of the earliest complex distributed systems, in the domain of program trading and mortgage allocation. Early in his career he worked as a member of the programming staff at AT&T Information Systems Laboratories.

He has also helped many start-up software companies, advising both the technologists and the managers in how to create software systems, and has served on several boards and advisory boards.

Jeffrey Nickerson holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University. He holds a B.A. from UC Berkeley.

Dr. Jay F. Nunamaker is Regents Professor and Director of the Center for Management of Information at the University of Arizona. He was a faculty member at Purdue University prior to founding the MIS department at the University of Arizona in 1974. Under his leadership for twenty years, the department has become known for its expertise in collaboration technology and the technical aspects of MIS.

In 1996, Dr. Nunamaker received the DPMA EDSIG Distinguished IS Educator Award. The GroupSystems software resulting from his research received the Editor's Choice Award from PC Magazine, June 14, 1994. At the GroupWare 1993 Conference in San Jose, he received the GroupWare Achievement Award along with recognition of GroupSystems as best of show in the GDSS category. In 1992, he received the Arthur Andersen Consulting Professor of the Year award. Dr. Nunamaker received his Ph.D. in systems engineering and operations research from Case Institute of Technology, a M.S. and B.S. from the University of Pittsburgh, and a B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University. He was an original member of the ISDOS project (PSL/PSA) under the direction of Professor Daniel Teichroew at Case and the University of Michigan from 1965 to 1968.

Jonathan Pyke has worked in the IT industry since the mid 1970s and has a wide range of skills covering just about every aspect of software development, systems analysis and design, project management, consultancy, product management and marketing. He holds the equivalent of an MsC in computer science and is a Chartered Information Systems Practitioner. He has held senior positions with a Computer Manufacturer, a Bank and Staffware.

Jon has been involved in Office Automation systems since 1982, working on a project to develop an E-Mail system for a mini-computer manufacturer, and developed his first workflow system in 1985 for one of the major UK banks.

Jon has written and published a number of articles on the subject of Office Automation and Workflow Technology. These publications include work for the British Computer Society entitled Office Automation The Good News and the Workflow Report for publication by Cambridge Market Intelligence.

In 1992, Jon joined Staffware as the Chief Technology Officer, responsible for the Development, Support, Training and Professional Services. Jon is also responsible for product strategy, and under his technical guidance Staffware has developed and expanded its product range to make Staffware the Worlds leading Independent Workflow Automation product. Jon has personally conceived, designed and managed the development of a number of Staffware products including Staffware Global, the worlds first 100% pure Java Workflow product for the Internet, Staffware 97, Staffware 2000 and the iProcess Engine.

Jon is a frequent speaker at international events including, AiiM, The Windows Show and IMC. Jon is frequently quoted in the National and Industry press.

Jon is a founding member and current Chair of the Workflow Management Coalition. He is an AiiM Laureate for Workflow. He was a vice chair of AIIMs Emerging Technology Advisory Board (EmTAG).

Omar A. El Sawy is Director of Research at CTM and Professor of Information Systems in the Information and Operations Management Department at the Marshall School of business. His interests center around global e-business, information systems, knowledge management, and fast response management. His most recent research projects have included redesigning value chains for e-business in fast response environments, and the improvement of knowledge management practices around supply chain processes. Before assuming his position at CTM in September 2001 his research projects have been sponsored by the RosettaNet Consortium, by Carnegie-Mellon University, and by the Department of Defense. Prior to joining USC in 1983, he worked as an engineer and manager for 12 years, first at NCR Corporation, and then as manager of computer services for the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. El Sawy holds a Ph.D. from Stanford Business School, an MBA from the American University in Cairo, and a BSEE in Telecommunications from Cairo University. He has lectured, consulted, and carried out research in four continents, including stints as an information systems advisor to the United Nations Development Programme in Egypt, and as a Fulbright Scholar in Scandinavia. He serves on three advisory boards for e-business-related companies, and has been an expert panelist for the selection of Industry Week's World's 100 Best-Managed Companies.

El Sawy is the author of over 60 papers and his writings have appeared in both information systems and management journals. He serves on five journal editorial boards. He is a four-time winner of the Society for Information Managements International Paper Awards Competition, most recently in 1997 for work on transforming value chains for the electronic economy. He is the author of the book Redesigning Enterprise Processes for e-Business, McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Ming-Chien Shan is a department scientist and project manager at Hewlett Packard Research Laboratories, Palo Alto, California. He received his PH.D. degree in computer science from University of California, Berkeley in 1980. He joined IBM in 1977 and worked on DB2 product. In 1985, he joined HP Labs to lead object-oriented DBMS research and switched to workflow research in 1989. Now, he is leading HP workflow research and product development. Ming-Chien Shan has published over 40 papers in database and workflow and served as program chair or committee member for VLDB, Data Engineering, RIDE, and many other conferences.

HP Labs Building 1U-4,
1501 Page Mill Road,
Palo Alto, CA 94304, U.S.A.
Phone: 1 650 857 7158,
Email: shan@hpl.hp.com

Edward A. Stohr holds a Bachelor of Civil Engineering degree from Melbourne University, Australia, and M.B.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Information Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently a Research Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. His research interests are centered on the problems of developing computer systems to support work and decision making in organizations. He has been the editor of two books on decision support systems and has published articles in many leading journals.

Prior to coming to Stevens, Professor Stohr was a Professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University and prior to that, he was an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University. For the period 1984-95 Professor Stohr served as Chairman of the Information Systems Department at Stern. Until recently, he was Director of the Center for Research in Information Systems at the Stern School. In 1992, Professor Stohr served as chairman of the executive board of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). A founding member of the Association for Information Systems (AIS), Professor Stohr served on the program committee of the first AIS conference held in Pittsburgh, August 25-27, 1995.

He is on the editorial boards of a number of journals including the Journal of Information Systems Research, Information Systems Frontiers, the International Journal of Decision Support Systems, and The Journal of Management Information Systems.He is also Editor-at-Large for the Association of Information Systems electronic journals, Communications of the AIS and Journal of the AIS. He was guest editor, for special issues on Decision Support Systems of the Journal of Management Information Systems, 1986 and 1987, for a special issue of Management Information Systems Quarterly on IS Curricula and Pedagogy in 1995, and is currently a co-editor for a special issue of Information Systems Frontiers on workflow automation. Professor Stohr has also acted as consultant to a number of major corporations.