Biography

Gregory W. Ramsey is currently a second year student in the Doctoral Program in Information and Decision Sciences at the Carlson School of Management. He earned three degrees prior to starting his studies at the Carlson School: a BS in Electrical Engineering from Duke University, an MS in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and an MS in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University. He is also the winner of a KPMG Foundation Minority Doctoral Scholarship and a member of the PhD Project.

“The PhD Project began its mission in 1994 to increase the diversity of business school faculty by attracting African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Native Americans to business doctoral programs, and providing a network of peer support throughout the programs.” (Quoted from www.phdproject.org/phd3.html .)

Background: “Prior to attending the Carlson School, I worked in the healthcare technologies industry. I have also worked in the financial services and military electronics industries. Generally in industry, problems are solved within time and budgetary constraints. This prevented me from being able to study problems in depth, but that is what I want to do. My curious nature led me to pursue a PhD in information and decision sciences. In addition, I would like to be a role model for other minority students. Over the years I have been in school I have never been taught by an African-American male professor.”

Research Interests: “My interests are varied. As I am exposed to different doctoral classes and new literature, my interests are becoming more refined. One special topic of interest for me is information workflows, both in terms of systems themselves and the impact of systems on users. When organizations implement workflow systems usually business processes also change. These changes can have unintended consequences for the organization and users. Research topics I would like to explore in this area include: 1) what unintended consequences occur in business processes when information systems are the vehicle for implementing change, 2) what items can be accounted for prior to the implementation of systems that will minimize unintended consequences, and 3) how can an organization identify necessary system functionality based on organizational and aggregated user characteristics.

A further interest is how an understanding of cognitive processes can guide the design and use of information systems. How people think about tasks they perform impacts how they actually perform the task, especially when information systems are involved. I believe better systems can be designed by understanding the interaction of peoples' thinking and the systems they use.

Current Research Project: Currently I am working with Professor Paul Johnson and the Medical Best Practices Research Group. In this project, I have the opportunity to analyze and model physicians' decision processes. Among the activities of the group is the use of simulations as knowledge discovery tools in the development of data mining software for identifying patterns of thinking that lead to medical error. A premise upon which the research is based is that these patterns may be modified through the use of web-based technologies for decision support as well as physician training.

General Impressions: “My experience in the doctoral program at the Carlson School of Management has been very positive. I am challenged to learn new material and how to explain what I have learned. This may sound trivial but developing a theoretically consistent explanation of some subject matter is not easy. It requires skill. And these are the skills I am learning. By being actively involved in research I have a context for the breadth of courses that I am taking. Computer science is one of my supporting fields. I am particularly intrigued by the material on intelligent agents and knowledge representations. I believe the research training and the coursework will enable me to engage in interesting and challenging research projects.

The MISRC will be posting brief bios and research project notes that describe the people that are involved in the Information and Decision Sciences Department and the research they are undertaking on their own and through the MIS Research Center. For additional information on the KPMG Foundation Minority Doctoral Fellowship and the PhD Project, the interested readers should see the following links:

•  KPMG's Minority Doctoral Fellowship raw.rutgers.edu/kpmg/application.doc