Biographical sketches of authors

Parul A. Mittal IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016 (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 (IIT), Delhi and a Master of Science degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in computer science. Prior to joining IBM, she worked at Hughes Software Systems in India. Her primary research interests are in the area of eCommerce, knowledge management, and eGovernance.

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 the architecture and design of processors and parallel computers. Dr. Kumar received his B.Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India, in 1979, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Rice University in 1981 and 1984 respectively, all in electrical engineering.

Mukesh K. Mohania IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016 (mkmukesh@in.ibm.com). Dr. Mohania received his Ph.D. degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in 1995. He is currently a manager at the IBM India Research Laboratory. His areas of interest are distributed databases, data warehousing, semi/unstructured databases, XML data integration, data mining, and autonomic computing. He has published more than 75 research papers in these areas in leading international journals and conference proceedings, and as book chapters. He has organized several international conferences and workshops as program chair and has edited several conference proceedings. In 2000, Dr. Mohania received a Technical Achievement Award in the area of Web database management and data warehousing from the Association of Database and Expert Systems Applications in Greenwich, U.K. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE.

Medha Nair IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016 (nmedha@in.ibm.com). Ms. Nair is a software IT architect with the Software Group of IBM India. She holds B.E. and M.E. degrees in computer science from the Shri Govindram Seksaria Institute of Technology and Science, Indore. She has 15 years of industry experience, more than seven of them as a software architect in pre-sales. She works primarily in the area of eGovernance in India.

Nipun Batra IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016 (nipbatra@in.ibm.com). Mr. Batra is a Technical Staff Member at the IBM India Research Laboratory, Delhi. He holds a B.Tech. degree in production engineering from Pune University. Prior to joining the IBM Research Laboratory, he worked with IBM Global Services, Pune. He was also part of an aSAPXcess team with ASAP Solutions. Mr. Batra works primarily in the area of eCommerce and Eclipse technology.

Prasan Roy IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016 (prasan@in.ibm.com). Dr. Roy is a Research Staff Member at the IBM India Research Laboratory, Delhi. He holds a B.Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and a Ph.D. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, both in computer science. Prior to joining IBM, he held faculty and research positions at IIT-Bombay and Bell Laboratories. He works primarily in the area of database systems, encompassing data integration, XML storage, query optimization, and transaction processing.

Anupam Saronwala IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016 (asaronwala@in.ibm.com). Mr. Saronwala is responsible for managing research projects and business development activities at the IBM India Research Laboratory, New Delhi. Prior to joining IBM, he had more than 18 years' experience in software research and development, consulting and operations with leading U.S. and Indian companies. He holds a M.S. degree in computer engineering from Syracuse University, New York, and a B.Tech. degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. His primary areas of interest are in introducing leading-edge technologies to emerging markets, specifically in the areas of pervasive computing and eGovernance.

Lalit Yagnik IBM Research Division, IBM India Research Laboratory, Block I, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016 (yagnikl@sg.ibm.com). Mr. Yagnik heads the e-business Software Center of IBM India, responsible for software technical solutions consulting. He holds a Master of Science (Technology) degree from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in computer science and has more than 25 years' experience in consulting, architecting, and implementing software solutions. Joining IBM Australia in 1985, he has led clients with technical solutions and established software competency teams. Prior to his India assignment in 2000, he was Director of Software Services at SingaLab, a software R&D joint venture of IBM with the Singapore government. His interests include technology architectures for business innovation, eGovernance, database systems, integration, Web services, and technology–people–process synergy.