Penn State Information Sciences And Technology Faculty Grows

June 13, 2000
University Park, Pa.–The University Park-based faculty of Penn State’s School of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) has grown to nine, with the addition of four new members.

New to IST are Steven R. Haynes, formerly with the London School of Economics; Shaoyi He, Long Island University; and Michael D. McNeese, Air Force Research Laboratory. They join James Ze Wang, formerly with Stanford University, who was recently announced as the first recipient of the PNC Professional Development Professorship.

Steven B. Haynes, appointed an assistant professor of information sciences and technology at Penn State, focuses on systems analysis and design, human-computer interaction, explanation, and other topics in information systems development and management. His doctoral dissertation explores explanations in information systems as a product of design rationale.

He holds a master of science degree in information systems from the London School of Economics and a bachelor of science degree in management information systems from the University of Massachusetts. Haynes has taught software engineering, systems development, and inter-organizational information systems at the London School of Economics.

Prior to undertaking his doctoral studies, Haynes worked at Apple Computer, Inc., Adobe Systems, Inc., and other technology companies in the United States and Europe. He has held positions as a programmer, systems analyst, and application development project manager.

Shaoyi He is an expert in multilingual information retrieval who was an assistant professor in LIU’s Palmer School of Library and Information Science before coming to Penn State. Dr. He, appointed an assistant professor of information sciences and technology at Penn State, earned a doctoral degree in information and library science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Before coming to LIU in 1998, Dr. He worked in the Natural Language Processing Department of IBM's Software Solution Division for three and half years. He is active in research on linguistic aspects of information retrieval, multilingual e-commerce, natural language processing, and translation as knowledge diffusion.

He is a member of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), IEEE Computer Society, American Society for Information Science (ASIS), International Society of Knowledge Organization (ISKO), and Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL).

Among his most recently published papers are a content analysis of IT-oriented courses in library information systems curricula, research on translingual alteration of conceptual information alternation in medical translation between Chinese and English, and a study of country distribution and language capability of multilingual search engines on the Internet. He has published papers in such academic journals as Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Information Processing and Management, Journal of Information Communication and Library Science, Journal of China Society for Scientific and Technical Information.?

Michael D. McNeese will hold the title of associate professor of information sciences and technology at Penn State.

Before joining the University, he was director of the Collaborative Systems Technology Laboratory at the Crew System Interface Division, Air Force Research Laboratory, at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In that role, he served as a senior scientist working in human-computer interface research as it applies to warfare information systems, battle management command and control teamwork, and related subjects.

McNeese earned his doctoral degree in cognitive science from Vanderbilt University. Examining issues that bridged computer science and cognitive studies, he received the first interdisciplinary Ph.D. awarded by Vanderbilt. McNeese also holds a master’s degree in experimental cognitive psychology from the University of Dayton, and a B.A. in psychology (magna cum laude) from the same institution. In addition, McNeese earned an associate degree in engineering design from Sinclair College.

He is widely published and among his most recent works is a book titled New Trends in Collaborative Activities: Dynamics in Complex Systems, to be released later this year by the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Press. Also in press is the journal article "Socio-cognitive Factors in the Acquisition and Transfer of Knowledge."

McNeese has taught at The Ohio State University and Wright State University.

James Ze Wang is an expert in visual database search and retrieval. He was formerly with the Biomedical Informatics Group and the Computer Science Database Group at Stanford and undertakes work that makes possible the retrieval of specific images from databanks of photos, or, for example, allows doctors to search collections of x-rays to determine if a specific image shows signs of disease.

His doctoral thesis at Stanford explored "Semantics-sensitive Integrated Matching for Picture Libraries and Biomedical Image Databases." He earned master of science degrees in computer science and mathematics at Stanford in 1997 and was the holder of a graduate fellowship there. In 1994, he earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science (summa cum laude) from the University of Minnesota.

For further information, contact Charles C. DuBois at (814) 865-4458 or .

Visit IST’s Web site at http://www.ist.psu.edu.