My name is Patricia Ruma Spence and I am an experienced IT consultant currently pursuing a PhD in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at The Pennsylvania State University. My research focuses on the study of teams, particularly collaborative information use and knowledge creation in teams. This research is supervised by my committee: Madhu C. Reddy, Ph.D. (advisor), Jim Jansen, Ph.D., Sandeep Purao, Ph.D., and Barbara Gray, Ph.D.
In the past, I worked as a senior CRM consultant for The Extraprise Group, Inc. in Boston, MA. I have also worked as a senior consultant for Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting, LLP) in St. Louis, MO. In these roles, I served as a consultant to a number of Fortune 1000 firms on various topics regarding strategic planning and implementation of information technologies.
I am a native of Missouri and hold a BS in Engineering Management and an MS in Information Science & Technology from the Missouri University of Science & Technology.
News and Notes
October 2009: I have been accepted as a student volunteer for the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 2010. I am looking forward to serving this community and taking advantage of all the conference has to offer.
August 2009: I have been accepted to the International Conference for Information Systems (ICIS) 2009 Doctoral Consortium. This is a wonderful honor and a great opporunity for me to further my work. My DC research paper.
August 2009: I successfuly defended my dissertation proposal!
June 2009: I have been accepted to the 2009 Academy of Management Organizational Communication & Information Systems (OCIS) Doctoral Consortium. My DC research paper.
May 2009: Book chapter accepted: Reddy, M.C., Jansen, B.J. and P.R. Spence (Accepted). Collaborative Information Behavior: Exploring Collaboration and Coordination During Information Seeking and Retrieval Activities. Submitted to J. Foster (Ed.), Collaborative Information Behavior: User Engagement and Communication Sharing. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
January 2009: Book review accepted: Book Review: Project Management in Practice, Third Ed. Information Processing & Management. 45: p. 397-400.