Current Students in Information Systems

Mohamed Abou El Nour

Mohamed joined the PhD program in 2011 with 20 years of experience in the areas of business development, system engineering, consulting, project management experience in development, testing and implementation of telecommunications and information management systems.

Throughout his career Mohamed has had numerous achievements introducing new products, managing teams, managing customers, developing new solution offerings, designing system architectures, testing and evaluating system designs, and implementing new systems and solutions.

Research Interests

Mohamed's research interest is to study the ever increasing role of e-commerce, e-business, and online applications in redefining the roles of competition in the market place. He plans to specialize in the main factor influencing the consumer behaviour and decision in e-business domain, and how this information could be utilized for competitive advantage in market place like e-learning industry, or for improving services like online health information. The more understanding we acquire of the factors affecting the human decision online, the more capable we are of offering better online services that closely meet the users expectations and needs.

The emerging technologies such as smart phones, applications stores, and cloud computing, combined with new phenomenon like social networking and continuous web presence have changed the consumer behaviour and attitude towards e-business. Mohamed's research shall investigate how these factors affect the human decision and attitude towards e-business applications and innovations in order to formulate winning e-business strategy. The findings shall also provide information on what applications are better positioned to benefit from the current and emerging e-business trends and increasing users' awareness. I am also interested in investigating how online users' behaviour when gathering information or making online orders differs from the traditional behaviour outside the web domain.

Education

MBA (2010) University of Calgary, AB, Canada
M.Sc Electrical Engineering (1998) University of Victoria, BC, Canada
B.Sc Electrical Engineering (1990) Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Reza Ariaeinejad

Reza joined the PhD program in September 2010, immediately following the completion of his Masters degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Ryerson University. His research interests are in the area of design and development of complex dynamic organizations (information systems), such as e-government, as well as the transition from legacy (old) systems to these newly developed electronic systems.

Professional and Honorary Activities

In the final year of his B.Sc. studies, Reza served as the head and the technical supervisor of the Iranian robotics team participating in the International Fire-fighting Robots Contest in the U.S. and later, in the 3rd International IEEE Latin American Robotics Contest in Mexico.

After completing his bachelor degree in Computer Engineering, Reza worked as a software engineer for a couple of years before deciding to move to Canada. In Canada, he worked for a few well-known international companies such as General Electric and Thomson Reuters.

He established the International Robotics Academy, an educational robotics institute in 2007, where he taught some electronics and robotics as well as some programming courses. In 2008, he decided to go back to school to pursue his own education.

Education

M.A.Sc., Electrical & Computer Engineering, Ryerson University
B.Sc., Computer Engineering, Azad University

Vahid Assadi

Vahid joined our PhD program in January 2007. His research interests lie in the areas of e-Health as well as adoption of Information Systems by individuals and organizations. He is also interested in understanding capabilities of Information Systems to support consumer-based health care. In particular, he is interested in investigating various benefits, barriers and factors leading to the adoption of Personal Health Record (PHR) systems by the general public. Vahid was a PhD student participant in the 30th ICIS Doctoral Consortium in Phoenix, Arizona (2009). He was a member of the School of Business Student Research Ethics Committee (SBSREC) 2007-2009. He is currently the President and a founding member of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) Student Chapter of the DeGroote School of Business.

Professional Activities

Over the course of Vahid's extensive career, he has been involved in a number of industrial projects for software development and automotive production companies. He has worked as a web and application programmer, database designer, system analyst, and project manager and has also taught undergraduate courses such as software engineering, systems analysis and design, and web programming and architecture.

Publications / Presentations

Assadi, V., Hassanein, K., (2010), “Continuance Intention to Use High Maintenance Information Systems: The Role of Perceived Maintenance Effort,” European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Pretoria, South Africa, June 7-9.

Assadi, V. (2009). “Consumer Adoption and Use of Personal Health Record Systems,” International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Doctoral Consortium, Phoenix, Arizona, December 11-14, 2009.

Assadi, V., Hassanein, K., (2009), “Consumers' Acceptance and Use of Personal Health Records Systems: A Theoretical Model,” European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Verona, Italy, June 8-10.

Assadi, V., Sepehri, M., M., (2006), "Assessment of B2C Websites Based of Successful Implementation of Trust-Building Factors”, International Marketing Management Conference, , Tehran-Iran, August 2006.

Education

M.A., Information Technology Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University (Iran)
B.A., Software Engineering, Sharif University of Technology (Iran)

Web Site

http://buscom.business.mcmaster.ca/users/assadiv

Sonia Camacho

Sonia joined the PhD program in September 2010, after working for three years as a teaching and research assistant at the Universidad de los Andes School of Management (Colombia). Her research interests lie in the areas of technology adoption and e-business, as well as the business value of IT.

Publications and Presentations

Trujillo, C. A., Barrios A., Camacho S., and Rosa, J.A. (2010). Low socioeconomic class and consumer complexity expectations for new product technology. Journal of Business Research, 63(6), 538-547.

Education

MBA, Management, Universidad de los Andes
B.A., Systems Engineering, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

David Daglish

David joined the PhD program at DeGroote in September 2007. His current research interests lie in the areas of security, privacy, and trust, particularly in eHealth and similar sensitive content areas.

Professional Activities

David has spent over 25 years in Software Engineering, working for and consulting to companies such as IBM, Nortel, NCR, Royal Bank, and Alcatel. David is also a professional engineer and a member of the Project Management Institute.

Education

MBA, Marketing and Organizational Behavior, York University
B.A.Sc., Engineering Science and Computer Science

Michael Dohan

Mike Dohan joined the PhD program in September 2010. He specializes in Information Systems, with a current research interest in evaluating the quality of e-health applications, as well as applying information and communication technologies (ICTs) to clinical practice audit and obesity self-management. Mike has past research experience in the relationship between individual ICT resources and social exclusion. His work has been accepted for inclusion in the proceedings of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC) 2011 conference in Montreal, Quebec.

Conference Proceedings

Dohan, M. S. & Tan, J. (2011). MEHQ (Model of E-Health Quality): Towards a General Theory for the Evaluation of E-Health Applications. Proceedings of ASAC 2011, July 2-5, 2011, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Serenko, A. & Dohan, M. S. (2011). Global Ranking of Artificial Intelligence Journals. Proceedings of ASAC 2011, July 2-5, 2011, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Tan, J., Hung, P.C.K., Dohan, M. S., Trojer, T., Farwick, M., & Toshiro, J. (2010). Gateway to Quality Living for the Elderly: Charting an Innovative Approach to Evidence-Based E-Health Technologies for Serving the Chronically Ill. 2010 IEEE 13th International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE), 11-13 Dec. 2010, Hong Kong.

Dohan, M. S., & Dawood, I. J. (2009). Technoinclusion: Towards an instrument for the field of community informatics to measure social exclusion. Presented at the 2009 International Applied Business Conference, San Antonio, Texas, USA.

Book Chapters

Tan, J. & Dohan, M. S. (2011). New Technologies for Advancing Healthcare & Clinical Practices. In J. Tan (Ed.). (Forthcoming Book). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Education

Masters of Science in Management, Lakehead University, 2008
Honours Bachelor of Commerce - Information Systems, Lakehead University, 2006
Diploma of Business - Computer Programmer Analyst, Confederation College, 2000

Maryam Ghasemaghaei

Maryam joined the PhD program in September 2011. Her research interests lie in the areas of IT and its adoption by individuals and organizations. More specifically, she is interested in Online Shopping and Social Networks, as well as Personal Health Record (PHR) Adoption and Use.

Publications

Awards

Ontario Trillium Scholarship

Education

M.Sc., Business Management (Marketing), Isfahan University, (Iran)
B.Sc., Industrial Management, Isfahan University, (Iran)

John Gilbert

John joined the PhD program in Business Administration in September 2008. His interests are in decision support systems and in particular in capturing unstructured information.

Professional Activities

John has a wide base of business experience in information technology, financial planning and analysis, human resources and marketing. He has worked for some of Canada's largest companies including Imperial Oil, Xerox, Manulife Financial and Nortel Networks. John has also lectured on business systems at Ryerson University. For the decade prior to joining the DeGroote PhD program, he was a principal in a consulting firm specializing in decision support systems with clients primarily in large Canadian financial services companies.

Education

MBA, Finance and Management Science, McMaster University
B.Sc. (Hons), Physics, McMaster University

John Laugesen

John entered the PhD program in Business Administration in September 2008. He maintains a focus towards information systems, eHealth, mobile technology, mobile commerce and management of new technology.

Professional Activities

John has gained experience through a variety of positions at leading technology and consulting firms. He spent four years working for IBM as a systems consultant and marketing assistant, followed by six years as a consultant, senior consultant, and manager at KPMG Management Consulting. Prior to entering the DeGroote PhD program, he worked for Exchange Solutions Inc. gaining a unique understanding of loyalty solutions for large US and Canadian Financial Institutions.

Publications/Presentations

Laugesen, J. (2011), "Chronic Disease Patient Adoption of Personal Health Records for Self-Management", International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Doctoral Consortium, Shanghai, China, November 30-December 3, 2011.

Laugesen, J., Hassanein, K., (2011), "Protection Motivation Theory, Task-Technology Fit and the Adoption of Personal Health Records by Chronic Care Patients: The Role of Educational Interventions", Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), Detroit, USA, August 4-7, 2011.

Hassanein, K., Head, M., Laugesen, J., Wang, F. (2011), “Understanding and Coping with Mobile Data Device Use in the Classroom”, Conference of the International Journal of Arts and Sciences (IJAS), Prague, Czech Republic, June 21-24, 2011.

Laugesen, J., Hassanein, K., (2010), "A Continuance Model for a Mobile/Web Based Self-Management System for Adolescent Diabetics: The Role of Loyalty Incentives", European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Pretoria, South Africa, June 7-9.

Laugesen, J., Yuan, Y., (2010), "What factors contributed to the success of Apple's iPhone?", International Conference on Mobile Business/Global Mobility Roundtable (ICMB/GMR), Athens, Greece, June 13-15.

Education

MBA, University of Western Ontario
H.B.A., University of Western Ontario

Sana Mojdeh

Sana was born into an academic family, so expecting to be a scholar was not really out of reach. He completed an undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering (Sharif University of Technology, Iran, 2005). He had his first conference presentation in 2004 and became the first undergraduate student in his faculty to present a paper in an International Industrial Engineering Conference. After two years of work experience for well-known international companies, Sana decided to continue graduate studies in Information Technology and Management (University of North Carolina, NC, 2007-2009). He was involved in a very interesting internship program at Volvo North America in the summer of 2008 before deciding to apply for the PhD program at McMaster University.

Research Interests

Sana's research interests are Decision Support Systems and specifically Business Intelligence Solutions and Analytic Applications, Human-Computer Interaction and Information Visualization.

Publications

Under Review:

Mojdeh, S., Nemati, R. H. (2009) "Investigating the Effects of Cognitive Style-based Dashboard Design on Dashboard Solutions Acceptance". Submitted to the Journal of Information and Management.

Published Papers

Mojdeh, S. (2009), "Investigating the Effects of Cognitive Style-based Dashboard Design on Dashboard Solutions Acceptance". Proceeding of the 10th GITMA Conference, Mexico City, Mexico.

Mojdeh, S. (2007), "Business Intelligence Vendor Selection: A Case Study for IranKhodro Automobile Manufacturing Co.". Accepted in 4th International Conference on IT - New Generations (ITNG), Las Vegas, NV, USA.

Mojdeh, S. (2006), "The Enabler Technology for Performance Management Solution". Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Communication Management.

Mojdeh, S. (2004), "Selecting Manufacturing Flexibility Dimensions with AHP Based on Business Strategy". Proceeding of 1st International Industrial Engineering Conference, Tehran, Iran.

Kenneth Owen

Kenneth joined the PhD program in September 2010. His research interests are focused around the interface between humans and their data, and the interfaces they use to turn that data into a valuable asset in a business.

Professional Activities

Kenneth has spent over 20 years as an e-commerce consultant. Kenneth owned and operated the first internet service provider in Northwestern Ontario. Most recently, Kenneth has enjoyed teaching Information Systems related courses at Lakehead University.

Publications

Owen, Kenneth, & Willis, Robert (2008). In Dumova, T., Fiordo, R., & IGI Global. Handbook of research on social interaction technologies and collaboration software. Hershey, Pa.: IGI Global 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Hershey, Pennsylvania, 17033, USA.

Education

MMGT., Management, Lakehead University, 2004
B.A., Geography, Lakehead University, 1994

Jeff Pittaway

Jeff joined the PhD program in September 2007. His research interests are focused on the role of knowledge management in the development of complex dynamic organizational systems and the implications for IS governance. He has completed empirical studies in the contexts of e-government and e-health, as well as meta-analyses in the context of multi-national corporations.

Professional Activities

Prior to joining the program Jeff had 20 years of experience in the IT industry. His experience includes entrepreneurship, national market development for Microsoft and GE Capital Technology Services, corporate vice-president for an Internet start-up, and senior management consultant for BDO Dunwoody Chartered Accountants.

Jeff is an active volunteer who has served as Chair of Volunteers, 14th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2008) and as a Program Co-Chair for the Informatics 2004 conference. He is also an active volunteer in IS industry associations having served two terms as a Chapter President of the Canadian Information Processing Society, two terms on the board of directors of the Business Information Technology Network, and he continues as an expert panelist for Viatech, a volunteer program to coach entrepreneurs in early-stage companies.

Publications

Montazemi A., Pittaway J. and Keshavjee, K. (2009). Disenfranchised patients: A network analysis of IS integration in the context of patient-centered care. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, San Francisco, California.

Montazemi A., Pittaway J. and Cocosila M. Drivers and Enablers of Transformational e-Government: A Multilevel Perspective. (Working paper, forthcoming.)

Pittaway, J. and Archer, N. (2009). Complexity in Interoperability Standards for Healthcare Information Systems, in G. Babin, P. Kropf, and M. Weiss (Eds.): MCETECH 2009, LNBIP 26, pp. 113 - 125.

Education

MBA, Athabasca University
A.G.D.M., Athabasca University

Hamed Qahri Saremi

Hamed joined the PhD program in September 2008. His research interests lie in the areas of knowledge management, agent-based modeling of complex organizational systems, adoption of technology, and applications of soft computing techniques in decision making.

Over the course of Hamed's professional experience, he has been involved in a number of industrial projects. He has worked as a senior industrial engineer, project manager, and chief information officer (CIO). He has also taught some graduate and undergraduate courses such as strategies for e-business, business modeling, and time and work studies in industrial projects.

Publications

In pursuit of his research interests, Hamed has published several peer reviewed journal and conference papers. In addition, he has several others under review for publication considerations in prominent journals. Some of his recent publications:

Montazemi, A. R., Pittaway, J., and Qahri Saremi, H. (2010). Assessment of Ubiquitous Healthcare Information Systems Benefits. Paper presented at the 16th American Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), Lima, Peru.

Montazer, Gh. A., Qahri Saremi, H., and Khatibi, V. (2010). A Neuro-fuzzy Inference Engine for Farsi Numeral Characters Recognition. Expert Systems with Applications, 37(9), 6327-6337.

Montazer, Gh. A., Qahri Saremi, H., and Ramezani, M. (2009). Design a new mixed expert decision aiding system using fuzzy ELECTRE III method for vendor selection. Expert Systems with Applications, 36(8), 10837-10847.

Qahri Saremi, H., Abedin, B., and Meimand Kermani, A. (2008). Website Structure Improvement: Quadratic Assignment Problem Approach and Ant Colony Meta-Heuristic Technique. Applied Mathematics and Computation, 195(1), 285-298.

More details can be found on his website.

Education

M.Sc., Information Technology Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University in Iran
B.Sc. Industrial Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology

Sepandar Sepehr

Sepandar joined the PhD program in September 2010. Sepandar was involved in a very well-known internship program in Germany through IAESTE (International Association for the Exchange of Students for Teaching Experience) in 2007. He has also actively participated in private development and consulting projects regarding system analysis, design and implementation. In addition, he has worked as a teaching assistant in the Computer Science and Business departments and as a private tutor for over four years. Moreover, he has experienced serving as a reviewer for well-known conferences and journals.

Research Interests

Sepandar's research interests include adoption, continuing use, and high engagement in hedonic information systems, in particular game-based learning mediums. He is also interested in topics such as knowledge sharing in online social networks and usability in the context of health informatics (or e-Health).

Publications

Sepehr, S., Head, M., (2011). The Role of Competitiveness in the Cognitive Absorption of Video Games. To be published in Proceedings of the 10th Pre-ICIS Annual Workshop on HCI Research in MIS, Shanghai, China, December 4, 2011.

Sepehr, S. (2010). Adding Nested Headers and a Proper Gtk-Based GUI to The Haskell Table Tools. McMaster University Library. (Master's Thesis)

Education

M.Sc., Computer Science, McMaster University
B.Sc., Computer Engineering Software, University of Tehran, 2008

Amir Tavasoli

Amir joined the PhD program in September 2010. His main research interest is eHealth; more specifically, knowledge management tools and technologies that promote sustainable, accountable and transparent self-healthcare, and their adoption in the healthcare environment. He is also interested in facilitating self-healthcare using text mining. His Masters thesis entitled Automated Message Triage was directed toward developing a text mining algorithm and tool in order to "triage" (sort based on semantic significance) the messages that are sent from patients to their healthcare providers through an open source electronic Personal Health Record (ePHR) system called myOSCAR.

Professional Activities

Amir has been involved in several software engineering projects ranging from knowledge management for enterprise corporations to embedded programming on network routers. He has experienced development in several areas of computer science including artificial intelligence, database design, web development, embedded Linux, and others. Moreover, he has been a member of the rescue simulation robotic team at Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT) during his Bachelors and has qualified to international Robocop contests. Currently he is the Teaching Assistant (TA) for the Management Issues in eHealth (K736) graduate course.

Publications and Presentations

Tavasoli, A. and N. Archer (2009). A Proposed Intelligent Policy-Based Interface for a Mobile eHealth Environment. E-Technologies: Innovation in an Open World. G. Babin, P. Kropf and M. Weiss, Springer Berlin Heidelberg. 26: 246-251. (This paper also presented by him at MCETECH 2009.)

Presentation of eHealth Integration System using HL7 v3 at Technology Showcase in IBM CASCON 2009.

Tavasoli, A. (2010). Automated Message Triage - A Proposal for Supervised Semantic Classification of Messages. Computer Science. Hamilton, Ontario, McMaster University. MSc: xi,127. (Masters Thesis)

Education

M.Sc., Computer Science, McMaster University
B.Sc., Computer Science, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic)

Zhiling Tu

Zhiling joined the PhD program in September 2010. Her research interests include mobile commerce, information systems security, and information systems alignment.

Professional Activities

Zhiling has taught undergraduate courses such as Management Information Systems, Electronic Commerce, and Project Management. She has also worked as a programmer, database designer, system analyst, and project manager of several information systems development projects.

Publications and Presentations

Tu, Z. (2010). "The Effect of Computer Self-Efficacy on Perceived Ease of Use: A Meta-Analysis", 2010 Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC) Conference, Regina, Canada, May 22-25, 2010.

Education

M.Sc., Management Information Systems, Queen's School of Business, Queen's University
MBA, E-Business & Information Technology, Maastricht School of Management
M. Eng., Computer Software, Nanjing University, China
B.Sc., Computer Software, Nanjing University, China

Steven Way

Steve joined the PhD program in Business Administration in September 2007 with a keen interest in knowledge sharing and information systems security. His early research has covered topics on mobile commerce and authentication systems, focusing on metrics and applying technology in industry. His current research is examining the use of IT for coordination during multi-agency crisis response.

Professional Activities

Steven has over 10 years of experience in the IT industry specializing in internet technologies, acting as a consultant and holding positions from Web Developer to Director of Technology. Steven is part-owner and operator of a successful online business which he and his wife acquired in 2008.

Education

MBA, eBusiness/MINT, McMaster University
B.Sc., Biochemistry, McGill University