Biographical sketches of authors

Aseem Agrawal The World Bank, Washington, District of Columbia 20433 (aagrawal@worldbank.org). Mr. Agrawal graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and received a master's degree from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta. He has worked in the fields of finance and e-commerce, and is currently helping the World Bank design and implement an integrated loan administration platform.

Jayanta Basak IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India (bjayanta@in.ibm.com). Dr. Basak received a B.E. degree in electronics and telecommunication engineering from Jadavpur University, Calcutta; an M.E. degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore; and a Ph.D. degree from the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Calcutta, in 1987, 1989, and 1995, respectively. He served as a computer engineer in the Knowledge Based Computing Systems project of ISI from 1989 to 1992, and on the ISI faculty from 1992 to 2000. Dr. Basak was a visiting scientist at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University from 1991 to 1992 and a researcher in the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan, from 1997 to 1998. Since September 2000, he has been a Research Staff Member of the IBM India Research Laboratory, Delhi. He received Young Scientist awards from the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA), the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), and the International Neural Networks Society (INNS) in 1994, 1996, and 2000, respectively. Dr. Basak's research interests include neural networks and soft computing, pattern recognition, vision, image processing, and e-commerce.

Vivek Jain IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India (jvivek@in.ibm.com). Mr. Jain received his B.Tech. degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, in 1994 and his postgraduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, in 1996. Thereafter, he worked with the ICICI Securities and Finance Company in the area of financial and business analysis. At IBM Research, his areas of interest since June 2000 have included statistical analysis, learning algorithms, and fuzzy logic, with a focus on e-commerce applications, extracting business intelligence from enterprise-wide data, and marketing research. He is currently leading the business development efforts for the IBM India Research Laboratory in the Indian and southeast Asian markets.

Ravi Kothari IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India (rkothari@in.ibm.com). Dr. Kothari received the B.E. degree (with distinction) from Birla Institute of Technology, India, the M.S. degree from Louisiana State University, and the Ph.D. degree from West Virginia University, all in electrical engineering. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECECS) and Computer Science of the University of Cincinnati (UC), Ohio, as an Assistant Professor; he later became a tenured Associate Professor and Director of the Artificial Neural Systems Laboratory. Since June of 2002, Dr. Kothari has worked in the IBM India Research Laboratory, New Delhi. His theoretical areas of interest include pattern recognition, machine learning, data mining, self-organization, and dimensionality reduction. He is currently applying these technologies in commerce, life sciences, and other domains. Dr. Kothari received the William E. Restemeyer Teaching Excellence Award from the Department of ECECS at UC in 1994 and the Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Professor of the Year Award from the Department of ECECS at UC in 1995. He serves as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering and the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, as an Editorial Board member of the Pattern Analysis and Applications Journal, and as a member of the program committees of numerous conferences. Dr. Kothari is a member of Sigma Xi, Eta Kappa Nu, and Phi Kappa Phi; he is an IEEE Distinguished Visitor (2003–2005).

Manoj Kumar IBM Corporate Division, Route 100, Somers, New York 10589 (manoj1@us.ibm.com). Dr. Kumar is the Director of Corporate Technology Evaluation at IBM. He served as the Director of the IBM India Research Laboratory from 2000 to 2003. From 1983 to 2000, Dr. Kumar worked at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, where he led projects in electronic commerce, video delivery and encoding technologies, and architecture and design of processors and of parallel computers. Dr. Kumar received his B.Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, in 1979, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Rice University in 1981 and 1984, respectively, all in electrical engineering.

Parul A. Mittal IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India (mparul@in.ibm.com). Ms. Mittal is a Research Staff Member at the IBM India Research Laboratory, Delhi. She holds a B.Tech. degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and a Master of Science degree from the University of Michigan in computer science. Prior to joining IBM, she worked at Hughes Software Systems in India. Her primary research interests are in the area of e-commerce, knowledge management, and e-governance.

Natwar Modani IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India (namodani@in.ibm.com). Mr. Modani received an M.E. degree from the Indian Institute of Science, with specialization in high-speed networks. At the IBM India Research Laboratory, his area of interest is e-commerce.

K. Ravikumar (biography not available)

Yogish Sabharwal IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India (ysabharwal@in.ibm.com). Mr. Sabharwal received his bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1994 and his master's degree in computer applications in 1997, both from Delhi University. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Mr. Sabharwal has worked with Hughes Software Systems and Nortel Networks in the areas of networking and telecommunications and is currently working on e-commerce technology at the IBM India Research Laboratory.

R. Sureka (biography not available)