What is a role model? How would someone go about choosing a role model within the same peer group? If you agree to trust the American Heritage Dictionary definition, a role model is "a person who serves as a model in a particular behavioral or social role for another person to emulate".
So it happened that upon some consideration, I've narrowed my search to just one senior graduate student who was likely to share some of my educational background, have similar research interests and pursue the same hobbies like photography and travel.
Thus I've decided to have closer look at David Saab.
One connection between us is obvious and clear, we share the same academic advisor, Dr. Andrea Tapia. The concept of having similar research interests may be a bit fuzzy at times, so I have decided to adopt a more philosophical view of similarity. In philosophy, according to the Wikipedia interpretation, similarity is defined as sharing properties and characteristic traits. For instance, the sky is similar to the sea because they both share the property of being blue.
David has once mentioned online that his "... research interests focus on the nexus of cognition, culture, and technology. From this broad perspective, I should say that David's research interests are quite similar to mine because I intend to research the connection between political and cultural make-up and successful implementation of e-government initiatives in different parts of the world.
David Saab expects to graduate in 2009. After many months of hard work, vigorous research and writing, David had a momentous day in his academic life, June 12, 2008. That was the day when he successfully defended the dissertation proposal which dealt with the ontology of tags and folksonomies. In his own words, David Saab tries to understand "information system ontologies as emergent cultural schemas through the manifestations of folksonomies and the use of tags". My sincere congratulations, David! And good luck with the dissertation defense.
David is very active in achieving his academic goals. He writes papers for domestic and international conferences in the USA, Canada and Germany, effectively participates in local workshops held at the University Park campus. According to his CV, David currently has five papers in progress on topics ranging from scenario-based ontology development to study of international NGOs engaged in Humanitarian Relief efforts.
David's writings are reflective of his various research endeavors, and some of them are similar to mine. For instance, we both work as Research Assistants in Dr. Hall's Center for Network-Centric Cognition and Information Fusion.
In 2007, David Saab worked on another project, COHORT, that I have slight connection to.
In conclusion, I would like to mention that earlier this semester I had a chance to listen to David's presentation intended for students in one of my graduate classes, IST501, taught by Dr. Giles. I was deeply impressed by his knowledge and professional demeanor. This presentation was a truly successful attempt at simplifying a highly complex article, What is the Philosophy of Information?" [Metaphilosophy, 2002, 33 (1/2)], written by Luciano Floridi, one of the most influential contemporary thinkers in this new branch of philosophy.
So it happened that upon some consideration, I've narrowed my search to just one senior graduate student who was likely to share some of my educational background, have similar research interests and pursue the same hobbies like photography and travel.
Thus I've decided to have closer look at David Saab.One connection between us is obvious and clear, we share the same academic advisor, Dr. Andrea Tapia. The concept of having similar research interests may be a bit fuzzy at times, so I have decided to adopt a more philosophical view of similarity. In philosophy, according to the Wikipedia interpretation, similarity is defined as sharing properties and characteristic traits. For instance, the sky is similar to the sea because they both share the property of being blue.
David has once mentioned online that his "... research interests focus on the nexus of cognition, culture, and technology. From this broad perspective, I should say that David's research interests are quite similar to mine because I intend to research the connection between political and cultural make-up and successful implementation of e-government initiatives in different parts of the world.
David Saab expects to graduate in 2009. After many months of hard work, vigorous research and writing, David had a momentous day in his academic life, June 12, 2008. That was the day when he successfully defended the dissertation proposal which dealt with the ontology of tags and folksonomies. In his own words, David Saab tries to understand "information system ontologies as emergent cultural schemas through the manifestations of folksonomies and the use of tags". My sincere congratulations, David! And good luck with the dissertation defense.
David is very active in achieving his academic goals. He writes papers for domestic and international conferences in the USA, Canada and Germany, effectively participates in local workshops held at the University Park campus. According to his CV, David currently has five papers in progress on topics ranging from scenario-based ontology development to study of international NGOs engaged in Humanitarian Relief efforts.
David's writings are reflective of his various research endeavors, and some of them are similar to mine. For instance, we both work as Research Assistants in Dr. Hall's Center for Network-Centric Cognition and Information Fusion.
In 2007, David Saab worked on another project, COHORT, that I have slight connection to.
In conclusion, I would like to mention that earlier this semester I had a chance to listen to David's presentation intended for students in one of my graduate classes, IST501, taught by Dr. Giles. I was deeply impressed by his knowledge and professional demeanor. This presentation was a truly successful attempt at simplifying a highly complex article, What is the Philosophy of Information?" [Metaphilosophy, 2002, 33 (1/2)], written by Luciano Floridi, one of the most influential contemporary thinkers in this new branch of philosophy.
I think David is very cool choice, Anna. I really like him on a personal level and the stuff he is trying to do with Heidegger's work is just very cool. But I have to say he has more courage than I do to try to practically apply some of those concepts; I think it is important and needs to be done, I just don't know that I would be up to doing it myself. :)
Actually, Harry and I took the IST503 (Philosophy of Science) with David once, and he gave us very deep thought almost all the topics in discussion. By the way, taking IST503 is very rewarding. :)