Dr. Ashraf Hassan Abdelwahab
Prof. Ashraf Abdelwahab is a professor of Computer Engineering, Electronics Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt. He received his M.Sc. in 1988, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University in the area of Artificial Intelligence. In 1989 he was awarded a Peace Fellowship for his Ph.D. at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. In 1992 he received his Ph.D. degree in Machine Learning and Evolutionary Algorithms. He has published over 50 technical papers in national and international journals and conferences in the areas of Evolutionary Algorithms, Machine Learning and Data Mining. Beside his research activities, Dr. Abdelwahab used to teach Computer Science courses in Egyptian and American universities.
Dr. Abdelwahab has been working in the IT area since 1986. In 2001, he worked as a project manager at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), managing several projects in the E-government and ICT for Development programs. Currently, Dr. Abdelwahab is Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Administrative Development. He is responsible of developing, monitoring and coordinating E-government initiatives, supervising the coordination with other ministries and international relations.

Dr. Noha Adly
Dr. Adly is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Computer Science at Cambridge University, UK in 1995. She was a Research Associate at AT&T Cambridge Research Laboratory (1995-1997) and a Visiting Researcher (1997-2000).
Since 1997, Dr. Adly has been a Consultant for information systems to several firms. She has also served as Consultant for Bibliotheca Alexandrina for the design and installation of its network and its information system. She is currently the Director of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Department and the International School of Information Science (ISIS) research center of Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
Dr. Adly is a member of the ACM and the IEEE Computer Society as well as several other scientific, social and humanitarian organizations. Her research interests are distributed systems, database systems and digital libraries. Dr. Adly is also author/co-author of more than 25 publications in peer reviewed journals and scientific conferences in the field of computer science and engineering

Dr. Amr Badawi
Dr. Amr Badawi is Senior Advisor to the Minister of Communication and Information Technology. He handles the development of the Telecom Sector, and is also involved in policy development and in providing support to all the telecom entities such as carriers, ISPs, vendors, etc.
Dr. Badawi joined MCIT after a nine-year tenure with GTE & General Dynamics. There, he acted as a Program Manager and in several other Technical Positions in support of the Telecom Sector Support and ICT programs in Egypt. Prior to his tenure at GTE he founded the Telecom International – Egypt in 1990. Moreover, Dr. Badawi was Telecom Consultant for several government and private entities from 1987 – 1995. He also worked as a Development and System Engineer at Aydin Systems, California from 1984 – 1987.
Dr. Badawi is a professor of Electronics at Cairo University. He received his B.Sc and M.Sc. degrees in Electronics Engineering from Cairo University. He also received his Ph.D. degree from Stanford University, California in 1986.

Ms. Heather Boyles
Heather Boyles is a Director in the Member and Partner Relations department of Internet2. She has senior management responsibilities for Internet2's relationships with infrastructure-related constituencies, including non-US networking initiatives, US federal research networks and US-based advanced regional networks. As part of these responsibilities, Heather serves as Director, International Relations, overseeing the building of the Internet2 International Relations program from its first partnership in 1997 with Canada's CANARIE organization to over 45 partnerships today with high-performance research and education networking organizations from around the world. She has been involved with numerous global networking initiatives and organizations, including the Coordinating Committee on Intercontinental Research Networking (CCIRN), the Internet Society (ISOC), the G7 Global Interoperability of Broadband Networks (GIBN) initiative and others.
Heather has been with Internet2 since its inception serving in various capacities, including Director of Government Relations and Chief of Staff. She came to Internet2 initially on loan from her previous position as Director of Policy and Special Projects at the Federation of American Research Networks (FARNET). At FARNET, she created and wrote FARNET's Washington Update - a weekly review of policy issues of interest to the network research and education community. She also served at FARNET as co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation grant.
Heather holds a Master's Degree in International Affairs: International Economic Policy from the American University in Washington, DC and a Bachelor's Degree in International Studies and German from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Ms. Laura Elizabeth Campbell
Ms. Campbell was appointed to the position of associate librarian for strategic initiatives in 2000 by the Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington. He noted that "Laura has already made many significant contributions to the realization of the Library's digital future. Her demonstrated leadership, technical knowledge and network of expert colleagues in the public and private sectors will bring added strength to our decision-making process."
Creation of the position of associate librarian for strategic initiatives responds to a recommendation contained within the July 26 National Academy of Sciences report LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress. Responsibilities of the position include overall strategic planning for the Library, oversight of the Information Technology Services directorate, and leadership of a new National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program to build a nation-wide program to preserve important digital content.
Ms. Campbell is also the National Digital Library (NDL) director, in which capacity she led a five-year cooperative national effort to digitize and make available electronically important and interesting documents of America's history and culture from libraries and archival institutions throughout the country. NDL has put in place the award-winning American Memory Web site that is the cornerstone of the Library's online information service for the nation. Freely available, the Web site offers more than 8 million digital items from 138 collections of historical primary source materials.
Ms. Campbell assumed responsibility for the American Memory Program in 1993 and began co-chairing the Library’s Digital Futures Group in late 1998. She joined the Library in April 1992 as a director of programs involving the Library's cost-recovery services.
Ms. Campbell was a management and systems consultant for over 18 years before joining the Library. From 1989 to 1992, she was vice president of QueTel Corp., a business and systems integration consulting firm, where she directed consulting engagements in strategic planning and financial systems, including work for the Library of Congress.
From 1984 to 1989, she was a principal with Arthur Young & Co. (now Ernst and Young), directing projects for industry and government. She served as a project manager for the strategic planning review of the Library of Congress in 1988-89.
Ms. Campbell holds two masters degrees in management and accounting.

Dr. Timothy W. Cole
Timothy W. Cole is Mathematics Librarian and Professor of Library Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A member of the Library faculty at Illinois since 1989, he has held prior appointments as Systems Librarian for Digital Projects and Assistant Engineering Librarian for Information Services. He is currently principal investigator for an Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant to build a collection registry and item-level metadata repository for digital collections and content developed under the auspices of IMLS grant programs. He is past chair of the National Science Digital Library Technology Standing Committee and a former member of the OAI Technical Committee. He has published widely on the use of OAI-PMH, descriptive metadata schemas and implementations, and the use of XML, MathML, and SGML in scholarly publishing, and has spoken about these topics at multiple venues including the IMLS Web-Wise Conference, ALA annual meeting, ASIST annual meeting, AALL annual meeting, NSDL annual meeting, JCDL, OAI4, and the Open Archives Forum.

Dr. Jerry Cooper
Jerry Cooper is the W.W. Spence Professor in Semitic Languages in the Near Eastern Studies Department of The Johns Hopkins University, where he has taught since 1968, and was department chair from 1984-1991. He did undergraduate and graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, was a Fulbright grantee at the University of Heidelberg in 1964-65, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1969. In 1975, he held a visiting appointment at the University of California, Los Angeles, and in 1981 was Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
His main research interests are Sumerian literature, Mesopotamian history, gender and sexuality in the ancient world, and the early history of writing systems, and he has published and lectured in all of those areas. From 1972-1988, he was associate editor of the Journal of Cuneiform Studies, and is currently editor of Mesopotamian Civilizations, a monograph series published by Eisenbrauns. He is a founding board member of the International Association for Assyriology and has served on the boards of the American Oriental Society and the American Schools of Oriental Research, whose Baghdad Committee he chaired for many years.
Although he was active in getting the university to provide faculty and students with proper data and text processing facilities in the mid to late 80s, he has no special technical expertise. As he states in his discussion paper, his perspective is that of an enthusiastic user. He is currently a co-investigator in the Johns Hopkins Digital Hammurabi project, which has developed the technology to make 3D digital scans of cuneiform tablets, in order to provide scholars with images of tablets that can be rotated, turned and illuminated from differently angles on screen, much as actual tablets would be manipulated in a museum. His role has been to let the hardware and software people know what kind of visual information is necessary and useful to someone who is reading a tablet, and, if the funding is found to build and deploy portable 3D scanners, he will initially select the collections and tablets for scanning, and help devise user-friendly archiving protocols.

Dr. Ahmed M. Darwish
Dr. Darwish is Minister of State for Administrative Development, and Professor of Computer Engineering at Cairo University. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Davis in 1988. During the last 3 years prior to becoming the Minister of State for Administrative Development he acted as the E-government Program Director at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. During the academic year 1988/89, Dr. Darwish was a lecturer and post-doctoral researcher with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at California University, Davis. He also joined Cairo University in 1989 as an assistant professor, where later he became an associate professor then a professor with the Computer Engineering Department in 1994 and 1999 respectively. During the year 1996/97; on sabbatical leave with the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Tech; Dr. Darwish cooperated on several research projects with the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group.
Dr. Darwish was a consultant to a number of international organizations (UNESCO, FAO, ESCWA, European Union and World Bank), government organizations and companies both in the United States and Egypt. He led the team to prepare the National Project Document on e-government and coordinate the implementation efforts.
Dr. Darwish received the Egyptian National Engineering Award for the year 1999. As being a member of few scientific and professional societies and a reviewer for a number of publications, he shared in the design and development of two wireless simulation tools. Dr. Darwish has over 56 publications in journals and scientific conferences, co-authored in 2 books, contributed to several talks and sponsored research programs.

Dr. Shahira ElSawy
Dr. Shahira El Sawy is Dean of Libraries and Learning Technologies at the American University in Cairo. She first became Director of the AUC Library in 1994/95. In 1998, the position of Director was elevated to Dean of Libraries and Media Services. In 2000, reflecting the role of the Libraries in technology and instructional media, the unit Academic Computing Services merged to form Libraries and Learning Technologies (LLT). More recently, LLT assumed responsibility for the University Web, and for a newly established Center for Learning and Teaching.
In addition to maintaining its place as the largest English-language academic library in the region, LLT services include classroom technologies, a wireless laptop lab, an adaptive technology corner, assistance with WebCT, a mandatory course in information literacy as part of the undergraduate curriculum, and many other functions. The unique collections in Islamic Art and Architecture and in Egyptology (housed in the Rare Books and Special Collections Library), in addition to its collection of Arabic holdings, make the Library's catalog a valuable research tool. Working with the Innovative Interfaces Library System, the library team pioneered the creation of dual-script catalog records. The AUC Libraries are members of the Research Libraries Group. El Sawy serves as the chair of the International Committee of the Egyptian Library Association.
El Sawy's future plans include further streamlining and collaboration between the units of LLT, to maximize the potential for enhancing learning and teaching at the American University in Cairo. She plans for AUC to become the focus of local and regional co-operative projects. She is also hoping to move into digitization for the unique parts of the library's collections such as old architectural photographs.

Dr. M. Hisham El-Sherif
Dr. Hisham El Sherif received his Ph.D. from MIT in Business and Engineering. He is currently the Chairman of IT Ventures; holding direct investment company with subsidiaries in networking and telecommunications, software development, IT system integration, media and e-business. His position as a Founder and Chairman of Nile Online, had a major role in driving the building of the Internet backbone in Egypt. Dr. El Sherif was also a Co-founder and Chair of the Advisory Board, for 14 years (1985-1999), of the Cabinet Information and Decision Support Centre. Under his leadership, IDSC was selected as one of the top 100 IT organizations in the world.
Dr. El Sherif is a creative builder of institutions and organizations, among them RITSEC, a regionally recognized leader in software engineering, multimedia, education, training, culture-ware and the information highway.
Extending his message beyond national boundaries, Dr. El Sherif is a commissioner of the Washington-based Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC). He actively served and contributed to the global development agenda jointly with the World Bank (Info Dev), UNDP, WIPO, WTO, ITC, UNCTAD, ILO, etc.. In addition, he has initiated and helped implementing more than 700 programs and projects in Egypt, the Middle East, the US and Europe.
Dr. El Sherif has been appointed Chairman of the Advisory Board of the renowned Egyptian Museum, Chairman of the Egypt Internet Society, member of Council of the Motherhood and Childhood and Chair of Children with Special Needs Initiative. Also a member of the Opera Fund, Egypt Culture Fund, the National Board of Archaeology, as well as the board of the Future Generation Foundation (FGF). Moreover, he served as a member of the US-Egypt President's Council until 2002 and has been a professor at the American University in Cairo since 1983.
Globally recognized for his achievements, Dr. El Sherif has received several outstanding awards, among them the World First Prize in Information Systems from SIM in 1998, the Franz Edelman award for Management Achievements and its Application in 1989 and the IFORS Operation Research Third World Prize Award in 1987. In addition, Dr. El Sherif was awarded the First Order Medal of Merit by the president of Tunis in 2004; the President of France awarded him the French Knighthood in 1991. Closer to home, H.E. the President of Egypt awarded Dr. El Sherif the First Order Medal of Science and Arts in 1999.

Dr. Robert K. Englund
Dr. Englund teaches Babylonian languages and history at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures of the University of California, Los Angeles. He has conducted his major research in Berlin, Heidelberg and Baghdad, focusing on the proto-cuneiform texts from late 4th millennium BC Mesopotamia, and, as director of the project Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI), on the electronic documentation and edition of cuneiform generally. He is editor of and contributor to the online journals Cuneiform Digital Library Journal and Bulletin (CDLJ&B). Englund finished his BA at the University of California at Berkeley, and following a year of graduate work at the University of Chicago, moved to Munich, where he wrote his dissertation entitled Verwaltung und Organisation der Ur III-Fischerei (The Administration and Organization of Ur III Fisheries). The thesis is concerned above all with the administration of Babylonian fisheries, emphasizing an analysis of the accounting terminology in the Ur III period (ca. 2100-2000 BC) archives as a tool for understanding the organization and social position of fishermen and comparable state-dependent workers and supervisors of household economic units. He conducted post-doctoral research and taught at the Free University of Berlin in the 1980's and 90's, and moved to Los Angeles in 1996.
For his work on the digital capture, preservation and dissemination of cuneiform collections world-wide, Englund was honored with the 2004 Richard W.
Lyman Award of the National Humanities Center. He is a native of the Pacific Northwest.

Mr. John Gage
John Gage is Chief Researcher and Vice President of the Science Office for Sun Microsystems, an international information technology company based in California. He was one of the founders of Sun, in 1982, when a group of students and professors from Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley joined to create open systems in hardware and software.
He has served on the Boards of Trustees of the United States National Library of Medicine, FermiLabs, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, NetDay, Schools OnLine, United States National Research Council, the Internet Society (ISOC) and other scientific and educational groups.
He serves on the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security, the Board of Advisors of the United States Institute of Peace, the National Academy of Sciences,and the International Advisory Board of the Malaysian Multimedia Corridor.
He attended the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard Business School, and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
See Web site at http://www.johngage.com/pages/bio.html

Mr. Stephen M. Griffin
Stephen M. Griffin is a Program Director in the Division of Information, and Intelligent Systems at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He is currently Program Director for Digital Libraries and Archives. For the period 1994-2004, Mr. Griffin managed the Special Projects Program which included the Interagency Digital Libraries Initiatives and the International Digital Libraries Collaborative Research and Applications Testbeds program. Prior to joining the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems, Mr. Griffin served in several research divisions, including the Divisions of Chemistry and Advanced Scientific Computing, the Office of the Assistant Director, Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, and staff offices of the Director of the NSF. He has been active in working groups for Federal high performance computing and communications programs, and serves on numerous domestic and international advisory committees related to digital libraries and advanced computing and networking infrastructure. In 2004-2005 he was on special assignment to the Library of Congress, Office of Stategic Initiatives, to assist with the National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program. His educational background includes degrees in Chemical Engineering and Information Systems Technology. He has additional graduate education in organizational behavior and development and the philosophy of science. His research interests are in topics related to interdisciplinary research and scholarly communication. He has been active in promoting cultural heritage informatics and computing and the humanities and arts.
Further information on current and past projects funded through his programs can be found at: http://www.dli2.nsf.gov/

Dr. Kenneth Hamma
Dr. Kenneth Hamma is Executive Director for Digital Policy and Initiatives at the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles. He oversees the management of the Getty Trust website, as well as strategic planning for information management across all Getty programs including the Museum, the Research Institute, the Conservation Institute and the Foundation.
He currently serves as a member of the Joint Committee on Archives, Libraries and Museums sponsored by the SAA, ALA and AAM; Director of the Museum Domain Management Association, the sponsor of the museum TLD; member of the User Advisory Board for Gallery Systems; and as a member of the advisory board of the American Association of Museum’s Nazi Era Provenance Internet Portal. He has served until 2003 as a board member for AMICO, the Art Museum Image Consortium, a board member for CIMI, the Consortium for the Interchange of Museum Information, a board member for NINCH, the National Initiative for Networked Cultural Heritage, and as an advisor to EU project Artiste and board member for EU project musEnic.
From 1996 to 2004 Assistant Director for the Getty Museum and from 1987 until 1996 he was Associate Curator of Antiquities. Prior to that, he was Associate Professor of Greek and Roman archaeology at the University of Southern California and Associate Director of the Princeton Archaeological Expedition to Marion, Cyprus. He has published on Greek and Roman art, on classical theater production, and on policy issues and resource discovery for cultural heritage online. He holds advanced degrees from Stanford and Princeton.

Dr. Lewis R. Lancaster
Professor Emeritus University of California, Berkeley, Department of East Asian Languages an Culture. Currently President of the University of the West in California.
Professor Lancaster has long been involved in computer projects, including the input of religious textual material from Thailand (Pali) (collaboration with Mahidol University) and Korea (Chinese) (collaboration with Dongguk University), Nepal (Sanskrit) (collaboration with the Nagarjuna Institute). In 1997, he organized the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (www.ecai.org), a part of the research division of the Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. ECAI has worked closely with the California Digital Library and Academia Sinica in Taiwan. Funding for the research on the digitization of cultural heritage material has come from the Lilly Endowment, Luce Foundation, National Science Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services and the University of California. Professor Lancaster serves on the Board of Directors for the Pacific Neighborhood Consortium, Executive Committee of the Center for Information Technology in the Interest of Society, Director of ECAI, and is the former Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Culture (U of California, Berkeley), Chair of the Center for Korean Studies. In his current role as President of the University of the West, he is involved with research on Eurasia including projects in Uzebekistan, Malaysia, China, and Nepal.

Dr. Ronald L. Larsen
Dr. Ron Larsen is the dean of the School of Information Sciences (SIS) at the University of Pittsburgh. He served as co-PI with Dr. Howard Wactlar (CMU) on the NSF-sponsored workshop leading to the report “Knowledge Lost in Information – Report of the NSF Workshop on Research Directions for Digital Libraries.”
Prior to accepting the deanship at SIS, Ron held academic and administrative positions at the University of Maryland, most recently leading a consortium of ten Maryland universities as they expanded their computer science, information science, telecommunications, and related information technology programs to respond to workforce demands. He was also the Associate Director for Information Technology of the University of Maryland Libraries.
During the late 1990’s, Ron served as assistant director of the Information Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he led research programs in digital libraries, information management, and cross-lingual information utilization. He also has research and administrative experience with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where he developed and managed research programs in computer science, systems automation, and space robotics.
Dr. Larsen earned a PhD in computer science from the University of Maryland, following a M.S. in applied physics from the Catholic University of America and a B.S. in engineering sciences from Purdue University.

Ms. Ola Wagieh Laurence
Ms. Wagieh is the Director of the Egyptian National Science and Technical Information Network (ENSTINET), the Academy of Scientific Research & Technology. She received her B.Sc of Chemistry from Faculty of Science, Assuit University. In 1995, Ms. Wageih held the position of a Marketing Manager at the Egyptian National S&T Information Network (ENSTINET), the Academy of Scientific Research & Technology then she became a Manager of Finance and Administration and finally the Deputy Director.
Ms. Wagieh is a member of a committee to develop a national information system and policies, a committee of the Subscription of the Electronic Resources for the Egyptian Universities and Research Centers, a committee on the Computerization of Egyptian Theses, the national committee on Raising the Egyptian Medical Periodicals, the national committee to set the national criteria for publishing, a Committee to promote collaboration between the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) and the Egyptian Universities, Academy of Scientific Research and Technology Directors Committee (ASRT), Kasr El-Aini Hospital, Cairo University; CDML Project, Egyptian S&T Community Connectivity Project, and finally Egyptian S&T Content Portal Project.

Dr. Richard M. Leventhal
Dr. Richard M. Leventhal is the Williams Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and a Professor in the University of Pennsylvania Department of Anthropology. He has done extensive archaeological research in Central America for over twenty-five years; this fieldwork has resulted in several monographs and books as well as numerous articles on the ancient Maya.
Dr. Leventhal’s previous positions include President of the School of American Research in Santa Fe, Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and a professor of anthropology at UCLA. He is a Trustee of the Archaeological Institute of America, an advisor to the Government of Belize on the development of a National Museum, and an advisor to several Maya indigenous groups.
Dr. Leventhal is currently involved in two long-term digital projects, co-chaired by Dr. Stephen Plog of the University of Virginia and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The first is an ongoing assessment of the need among archaeologists in the United States for a Center for Digital Archaeology that would archive databases, create best practice standards for both the archiving and gathering of archaeological data, and develop an educational outreach component to assist archaeologists in the creation of digital datasets. The second project is the creation of a Chaco Digital Archive related to past excavations and research within Chaco Canyon.
Most recently, Dr. Leventhal has been working on the creation of an archaeology special interest group for the world-wide gathering of archaeologists via high-speed Internet II. He is also working to develop, with the use of Internet II, increased virtual access to the Penn Museum and its exhibits for classes of all ages throughout the world.

Ms. Melissa Smith Levine
Melissa Smith Levine is the associate director for finance and administration for The Wolfsonian-Florida International University, a museum and special collection library that examines design how art and design objects from the modern era (1885-1945) shape and reflect the human experience. Before joining The Wolfsonian in 2003, she served as the acting director for the World Bank’s Art Program where she organized numerous exhibits of contemporary art from around the world. As counselor to the Library of Congress’ National Digital Library Project, American Memory from 1996 to 2001, Ms. Levine worked on legal and public policy matters related to intellectual property. Ms. Levine handled business affairs for the Smithsonian Institution from 1990 to 1996. She holds an art history and history degree from Emory University and a law degree from the University of Miami.

Dr. Joan K. Lippincott
Dr. Joan K. Lippincott is the Associate Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), a joint project of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and EDUCAUSE. CNI, an institutional membership organization, advances the transformative promise of networked information technology for the advancement of scholarly communication and the enrichment of intellectual productivity. She has been with CNI since 1990.
At CNI, Joan has provided leadership for programs such as New Learning Communities, Assessment of the Networked Environment, Working Together, and collaborative facilities and learning spaces. She has written articles and made presentations on such topics as networked information, learning spaces, collaboration among professional groups, assessment, and teaching and learning in the networked environment. Her chapter on “Net Generation Students and Libraries” in an EDUCAUSE book on Educating the Net Gen www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen/ has received wide distribution.
Joan previously held positions at Cornell University, George Washington University, Georgetown University, and SUNY at Brockport. In addition, she worked at the Research and Policy Analysis Division of the American Council on Education and the National Center for Postsecondary Governance and Finance at the University of Maryland.
Joan received her Ph.D. in higher education policy, planning, and administration from the University of Maryland, her M.L.S. from SUNY Geneseo, and an A.B. from Vassar College.
Additional information is available at:
http://www.cni.org/staff/joan_index.html

Dr. Maurice Abou El Saad Mikhail
Dr. Maurice is currently the Director of Mubarak Public Library since 1999. He received his Ph.D. and M.Sc degrees from Faculty of Science, Cairo University in 1980 and 1972 respectively. He also received B.Sc. degree from Faculty of Science, Assiut University in 1963.
Dr. Maurice served as the General Director of the Central Library, the National Information and Documentation Center, from 1997 till 1999. He delivered special courses as the “Scientific Editing and Publishing” , Catholic University, “Fundamentals of Proofreading and Copyediting”, and “The Magazine Editor”, George Washington University. Other courses were also about Association Publishing, the curriculum of “The Publishing Institute”, University of Denver, and on-the-job training on “Technical Editing and Publication Production” at Franklin Institute, Philadelphia.
Dr. Maurice has numerous publications including "Towards the Electronic Editing to Produce the NIDOC Publications" and "From Word Processing to Page Making in Arabic Texts" at "The 9 th International Conference of Science Editors", Egypt; on "Science Communication for the Next Millennium", June 7-11, 1998, “The Cooperation Concepts in The Academic Publishing: Author-Publishing Relationship” presented at a Seminar on “The Era of Electronic Publishing”, Saudi Arabia, 2001.
Other articles include "Academic Publishing: Its Definition and the Role of University Presses,” (in Arabic), "Scientific Editing, Copyediting, and Proofreading: Instructions & Guidelines," (in Arabic), "Use of High Technology for Developing Training on Scientific Publishing," and "The Electronic Library and the Role of Training to Use Its Holdings" (in Arabic). Finally, "Digital Systems and Their Contributions in Developing Special Libraries" (in Arabic) and “Mubarak Public Library as a Model of Modern Management of Libraries in Egypt”.
Dr. Maurice is a member of the Board of the Egyptian Geological Society, ASIS in USA, ESIT (the Committee to consider the basic rules for publishing the Journal of King Saud University). Moreover, he also was a member of the Board, The Egyptian Cultural Center, The Egyptian Embassy at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 1992-1995, Permanent Committee for Scientific Research & Academic and Cultural Relations, Organizing Committee of The 9 th International Conference of Science Editors", member of Developing the Library of the National Information and Documentation Center, Cairo, 2003, member of the Book and Publishing Committee at the Supreme Council of Culture, Ministry of Culture, Egypt, 2003, member of the Technical Committee of Collection Development Fund, Ministry of Culture, 2004, and finally, member of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian National Agriculture Library, from 2001 up till now.

Dr. Magdy H. Nagi
Dr. Nagi is a Professor in the Computer Science department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Karlsruhe in 1974, where he served as Lecturer for two years and as a Consultant to its Computer Center from 1974-1990. During this period he also served as Consultant to many companies in Germany such as Dr. Otker, Bayer, SYDAT AG, and BEC.
On the national level he was a Consultant to many projects under the umbrella of either the University of Alexandria or the Faculty of Engineering for designing and/or implementing automation projects for governmental authorities or public sector companies, such as the Ministry of Interior, the Health Insurance Organization (HIO), the Social Insurance Organization (SIO), and the Customs Authority.
Since 1995, Dr. Nagi has served as Consultant to Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Among his activities are the design and installation of Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s network and its information system as well as the design and implementation of the library information system, namely a trilingual information system that offers full library automation. He is currently serving as the Head of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Sector and the Director of the International School for Information Science (ISIS) at Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
Dr. Nagi is a member of the ACM and the IEEE Computer Society as well as several other scientific organizations. His main research interests are in operating systems and database systems. He is author/co-author of more than 80 papers.

Ms. Ann Okerson
Most recently, Ann Okerson has served as Associate University Librarian for Collections & International Programs at Yale University. Her previous work includes academic library and library management experience, several years in the commercial sector, and service ase a senior program officer at the Association of Research Libraries, where she was Director of the Office of Scientific and Academic Publishing. In that role, she was active nationally in working with librarians, academics, and vendors to identify and address the most urgent issues raised for librarianship by the emergence of networked information technology in the 1990s.
Arriving at Yale in 1996, she organized the Northeast Research libraries consortium (NERL), a group of 26 large research libraries and 40 smaller affiliates. NERL negotiates licenses for electronic information and engages in other forms of cooperative activity. Ms. Okerson serves as one of the active, founding spirits of the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) and an advisor to the Soros eIFL project.
Okerson's activities include numerous projects, publications, advisory boards, and speaking engagements around the world, as well as professional awards. In 1997, with funding from the Council on Library and Information Resources, she and the Yale Library staff mounted an online educational resource about library licensing of electronic content in a project called LIBLICENSE. Its extensive annotations and links are complemented by Liblicense-l, an international, moderated online discussion list frequented by nearly 3,000 librarians, publishers and attorneys. In 1998, she secured an additional grant and created Liblicense software that enables the users to generate a customized license using standard language options. In April 2001, the Digital Library Federation endorsed the Project's work on a Model Electronic License for academic research libraries.
Other recent activities include being a Principal Investigator on several cutting-edge grants, including two rounds of funding from the U.S. Department of Education's Title VI TICFIA program for building components of a Middle East Virtual Library, an NEH grant for digitizing Iraqi scholarly journals, and a Teagle Foundation grant for improving liberal arts teaching through use of library special collections. Just announced is funding from two US foundations, which will support the launch of OARE, a journals access project for developing nations. OARE does for the environmental sciences what HINARI does for Health and Life Sciences and AGORA for agricultural journals. Okerson is co-PI on this grant, partnered between Yale University and agencies of the United Nations.

Mr. Sam Quigley
Sam Quigley is the Director of Digital Information and Technology at the Harvard University Art Museums (www.artmuseums.harvard.edu), where he heads a major institutional initiative to digitize the wealth of research and scholarship activity at the Art Museums (the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Fogg Art Museum). Designing efficient imaging work flow systems, as well as publicly searchable database interfaces on the Web, are presently the primary focus in his work.
Formerly the Keeper of Musical Instruments and Associate Curator of European Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for about ten years, Quigley switched roles in1995 to become the MFA’s first Manager of Collections Information. In that capacity, he lead the development of a museum-wide collections information database of roughly 400,000 electronic object records. Sam Quigley served as Director of Collections at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2000-2001 before he accepted his current position at Harvard. An elected member of the Board of Directors of the Museum Computer Network (www.mcn.edu) since 1996, he recently completed a two year term as that organization’s president.
Quigley holds a Masters degree in Musicology from Wesleyan University, and remains an active performer of Javanese gamelan music. He has published on musical instruments and ethnomusicology and is a frequent speaker on policy issues related to collections automation at a variety of national and international conferences. His recent talks include:

• Data Management II: Best Practices Case Study at the Harvard University Art Museums – AAM annual meeting in May 2005
• Digital Preservation Policy Development in Art Museums, A Survey of Nine Art Museums in the USA – SAA annual meeting in August 2004
• Digital Asset Acquisition, Preservation, and Delivery, Leveraging Bar-Code and Direct Digital Technologies in a Turbo-Charged Collection Inventory – APEC Taiwan meeting in March 2004

Dr. Joyce Ray
Dr. Joyce Ray is Associate Deputy Director for Library Services at the US Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), a federal agency dedicated to enhancing museum and library services nationwide. She directs grant programs that distribute approximately $40 million per year to libraries, institutions of higher education, and other organizations throughout the nation and, through international partnerships, beyond the US. She also has responsibility for agency-wide digital initiatives. Program focus areas include grants for research and development of digital libraries, education of librarians, and projects to promote collaboration among libraries, museums, and other organizations. Before joining IMLS in 1997, she held positions at the National Archives and Records Administration and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. She has a Ph.D. in American History and a Master’s degree in Library Science, both from The University of Texas at Austin. IMLS has funded several digitization projects relating to Middle East collections in US institutions, including projects at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and the Center for American Overseas Research Centers. IMLS currently supports the IMLS Digital Collections and Content project at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, directed by Tim Cole, and the Discover Babylon project at the University of California Los Angeles, directed by Robert Englund. Both projects will be highlighted at the Digital Library of the Middle East workshop.

Dr. Malcolm Read
Dr. Malcolm Read graduated in 1973 with a degree in Environmental Science from the University of East Anglia and went on to do a PhD at the University of Manchester on the hydrometeorology of a glacial catchment. He then worked in the Overseas Development Administration before moving to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) in 1979. He ran the computer department at the Institute of Hydrology before moving into administrative computing to head the Joint Administrative Computing Service of NERC and the, then, Science and Engineering Research Council in 1988.
Since July 1993 Dr Read has worked for the Higher and Further Education Funding Councils as the Executive Secretary to the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). Apart from his overall responsibility for the Executive he has been particularly involved in ICT policy and strategy development in post 16 education and research. He is also Chairman of the European Networking Policy Group.

Dr. Fathi Saleh
Dr. Saleh is a Professor of Computer Engineering at Cairo University and the Director of the Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CultNat), which is part of Bibliotheca Alexandrina with the support of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. He is also a Member of the Supreme Council of Culture. From 1995 to 1997, he occupied the position of Cultural Councilor at the Embassy of Egypt in Paris, and from 1997-1999, he was the Ambassador of Egypt to the UNESCO. Dr Saleh graduated from the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University and obtained his Ph.D, Diplôme d’Études Approfondies and Certificat d’Études Supérieures from the University of Paris, France. His main interest is applying new technologies in the different fields of Cultural and Natural Heritage.

Mr. Nezar Nabil Sami
As manager of the Computer Support Department, Egyptian National S&T Network (ENSTINET), Mr. Nezar Sami is involved in setting technologies strategies for ENSTINET and S&T community in Egypt as well as managing and operating the Egyptian Research Centers Network. Mr. Sami provides technical consultations for different Egyptian Research Centers and other institutions and acts as the technical coordinator between ENSTINET and international organizations such as Internet2, RIPE NCC, AfriNIC and others.
Mr. Sami represents the Academy of Scientific Research & Technology in a number of activities such as the Egyptian IPv6 Task Force, Internet Society of Egypt, E-Commerce Committee and E-Learning Committee.
Mr. Sami graduated from Communications & Electronics Engineering Dept, Cairo University and later obtained several certificates in the field of management, including Executive Management Diploma, Total Quality Management Diploma, and Project Management Professional Certificate, all from the American University in Cairo (AUC). He also holds several international technical certifications in fields of Networking, Video Conferencing and Project Management and is recipient of a number of local and national awards in recognition of his work.

Dr. Ismail Serageldin
Dr. Serageldin is the Director of the newly established Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, and chairs the Boards of Directors for each of the seven research institutes and three museums affiliated to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
Previously he served as Vice President of the World Bank (1992-2000), Chairman of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR, 1994-2000), Chairman of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP), a micro-finance program (1995-2000), Chairman of the Global Water Partnership (GWP, 1996-2000), and Chairman of the World Commission for Water in the 21st Century (1998-2000). Dr. Serageldin worked in a number of capacities at the World Bank (1972-2000) and has published and lectured widely.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in engineering degree from Cairo University, and a Masters' degree and a Ph.D. from Harvard University and has received 15 honorary doctorates. Dr. Serageldin currently serves as Distinguished Professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and as chair and member of a number of advisory committees for academic, research, scientific, and international institutions and civil-society efforts. He has written more than 50 books and monographs (edited or authored) and 200 articles, book chapters, and technical papers on various topics.

Dr. Samir Ibrahim Shaheen
Prof. Samir I. Shaheen, Professor of Computer Engineering, Dean Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Egypt. He was born in Egypt in 1948. He obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Electronics and Communication Engineering, Cairo University in 1971 and 1974 respectively. In 1979, he received his Ph.D. from McGill University in Computer Vision. His main research activities are concerned with Knowledge Engineering, Computer Vision, Intelligent Systems and Computer Networks.
Prof. Shaheen is the Vice chairman of IEEE Egypt Section and is a member of ACM, and the Egyptian Society for Engineers. He is the founder of Cairo University campus wide optical fiber network and the automation of Cairo University information systems. He is also a member of the Egyptian Science Academy for the board of Communication and Information Technology and the Chairman of the Information Technology Section. Prof. Shaheen worked for UNESCO and the Ministry of Communication and Information technology for several projects in E-Learning/Training. He is the founder for the E-Learning Initiative in Egypt in the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology. He was the director of the Telemedicine project in Egypt. He has several projects with the European Union in GIS and E-Learning. He has more than 95 scientific papers published in International conferences and journals.

Mr. Dale Smith
Dale Smith is the Director of Network Services at the University of Oregon and is the Principal Investigator for the National Science Foundation grant (OISE award 0334176) that provides core funding for the Network Startup Resource Center (http://www.nsrc.org). The Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC) provides technical information, engineering assistance, training, and equipment to research institutions and networking organizations in developing areas. The primary goal is to make it easier for US scientists and engineers, and those in developing areas, to collaborate via the Internet. The NSRC provided assistance in establishing the first Internet connectivity to Egypt in 1993.
In addition to his work with the NSRC, Dale has extensive experience in campus network design, engineering, and operations. He has been an instrumental in the development of regional optical networks in Oregon and is active in an organization called The Quilt (http://www.thequilt.net) that focuses on regional and national networking issues.

Mr. Gary E. Strong
Gary E. Strong is University Librarian at UCLA in Los Angeles California (2003-). He previously was Director of the Queens Library in New York City (1994-2003), State Librarian of California (1980-1994), and Deputy State Librarian of the Washington State Library (1976-1980). He is a graduate of the University of Idaho (B.S. (Ed.) and the University of Michigan (AMLS, 1967). At the Queens Library he initiated the Center for International Public Librarianship and created WorldLinQ TM which includes an Arabic language site. A long-time advocate for multi-lingual, multi-cultural library services, he initiated the Partnerships for Change Program and California Literacy Campaign while State Librarian of California. The California Research Bureau which develops public policy research for California State Government was established under his leadership at the California State Library. He serves as a member of the Governing Board of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and formerly as IFLA’s representative to the United Nations. The UCLA Library is one of the top five ARL member libraries with its collection of over 8 million volumes and 80,000 serials, including comprehensive collections from the Middle East.

Dr. John Van Oudenaren
Dr. John Van Oudenaren was appointed senior advisor for the World Digital Library initiative of the Library of Congress in December 2005. Previously he served as chief of the European Division at the Library and the director of the Library’s Global Gateway digital library projects.
Prior to joining the Library in 1996, he was a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation and director of RAND's European office in Delft, the Netherlands. He has served on the Policy Planning Staff of the U. S. Department of State and has been a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He received his Ph. D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his A. B. in Germanic Languages and Literature from Princeton University. Dr. Van Oudenaren has published several books and numerous articles on European politics and international relations. He is an adjunct professor at the BMW Center for German and European Studies, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

Dr. Sohair F. Wastawy
Dr. Wastawy received her BA, MA, and completed work towards her Ph.D. thesis in Linguistics at Cairo University, Egypt. She possesses a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the Catholic University of America, Washington DC, USA and a Doctorate degree in Library and Information Management from Simmons College, Massachusetts, USA. 
Dr. Wastawy has been a practitioner in the information field since 1975 and practiced librarianship in a number of countries that include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the USA. She began her library career at Cairo University Library, taught librarianship in the first women’s library program in Saudi Arabia and was the Dean of Libraries at Illinois Institute of Technology at Chicago from 1988 until 2004.
Dr. Wastawy was recently appointed as the first Chief Librarian for the new Library of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt. In addition to her leadership role and managerial responsibilities, Dr. Wastawy is often a consultant to non-profit organizations, corporations, and accreditation commissions.
Dr. Wastawy is an expert in library management in academic and research institutions. Her most recent publication “Learning Communities: An investigative Study into their Impact on Library Services” was published in Science and Technology Libraries, Vol. 24, No. 3/4, 2004. Dr. Wastawy has been the recipient of many excellence awards, a Peace Fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship.

Dr. Donald J. Waters
Dr. Donald J. Waters is the Program Officer for Scholarly Communications at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Before joining the Foundation, he served as the first Director of the Digital Library Federation (1997-1999), as Associate University Librarian at Yale University (1993-1997), and in a variety of other positions at the Computer Center, the School of Management, and the University Library at Yale. Waters graduated with a Bachelor's degree in American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1973. In 1982, he received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Yale University. Waters conducted his dissertation research on the political economy of artisanry in Guyana, South America. He has edited a collection of African-American folklore from the Hampton Institute in a volume entitled Strange Ways and Sweet Dreams. In 1995-96, he co-chaired the Task Force of the Commission on Preservation and Access and the Research Libraries Group on Archiving of Digital Information, and was the editor and a principal author of the Task Force Report. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is the author of numerous articles and presentations on libraries, digital libraries, digital preservation, and scholarly communications.