Biographical sketches of authors

Catherine G. Wolf Research Division, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, PO Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 USA (cwolf@us.ibm.com). Dr. Wolf received a Ph.D. degree from Brown University in psychology. She has investigated a range of issues in human-computer interaction since coming to the Watson Research Center 18 years ago. In addition to her work on search, she has worked on handwriting and gestural interfaces, conversational interfaces, and collaboration. Dr. Wolf has published widely in the field of human-computer interaction and holds a number of patents.

Sherman R. Alpert Research Division, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, PO Box 218, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 (salpert@us.ibm.com). Mr. Alpert has been with the Watson Research Center since 1987. He received a B.S. degree in computer science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and an M.A. degree in computing education from Columbia University Teachers College, where he has pursued additional studies toward a doctorate. He has been involved in research and software development in a variety of domains including educational technology, human-computer interaction, multimedia, and object-oriented programming and design, and has published widely in these fields. He serves on the editorial and review boards of several journals and on a number of conference and program committees.

John G. Vergo Research Division, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, PO Box 218, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 USA (jvergo@us.ibm.com). Mr. Vergo is a member of the Technical Strategy team at the Watson Research Center. His research interests include human-computer interaction, User-Centered Design methods, multimodal user interfaces, e-commerce user experiences, speech recognition, natural language understanding, scientific visualization, 3D graphics, and software development methods. He has a B.S. degree in mathematics and psychology from the University at Albany, State University of New York and an M.S. degree in computer science from Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, NY.

Lev Kozakov Research Division, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, PO Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 USA (kozakov@us.ibm.com). Dr. Kozakov is a research staff member at the Watson Research Center. He received a Ph.D. degree in applied mathematics and computer sciences from M.V. Lomonosov Moscow University in 1983. He has worked in many areas, including dynamic systems, applied statistics, information management systems, man-machine interface, and object-oriented design and programming. His current research interests include information management frameworks and natural language processing technologies. He has a number of publications in various fields of computer science and applied mathematics and holds several patents.

Yurdaer Doganata Research Division, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, PO Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 USA (yurdaer@us.ibm.com). Dr. Doganata is the manager of the Information Management Solutions Group at the Watson Research Center. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey and a Ph.D. degree from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, all in electrical engineering. He joined the Watson Research Center as a research staff member in 1989 and has worked on and managed projects in many diverse areas, including high-speed switching systems, multimedia servers, intelligent transportation systems, multimedia collaborative applications, e-services, and information search and retrieval systems for technical support. His current work involves designing and prototyping innovative solutions, applications, tools, and utilities in the area of unstructured information management.