Cristiana Amza is an assistant professor in the Edward Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. She received her PhD and MS degrees in computer science from Rice University in 2003 and 1997, respectively. Her research interests are in the area of distributed and parallel systems, with an emphasis on self-adaptive behavior in dynamic content servers. Specifically, she is investigating dynamic resource allocation to applications in order to provide end-to-end Quality of Service in complex server environments. She has established an autonomic computing laboratory providing cutting-edge research on large-scale distributed platforms. She is actively collaborating with several industry partners, including Bell Canada, through Bell University Labs, IBM and Intel. Her awards include an Early Researcher Award (2007), an IBM Faculty Award (2006) and an Eclipse Award (2005).

Mariano P. Consens's research interests are in the areas of data management systems and the Web, with a focus on XML retrieval and autonomic systems. Mariano received his PhD and MSc degrees in computer science from the University of Toronto, and his computer systems engineering degree from the Universidad de la República, Uruguay. He has been a faculty member in Information Engineering at the MIE Department, University of Toronto, since 2003. Before that, he was research faculty at the School of Computer Science of the University of Waterloo from 1994 to 1999. He has been active in the software industry as a founder and CTO of several startups.

Michael Jenkin is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and a member of the Centre for Vision Research, at York University, Canada. Working in the fields of visually guided autonomous robots and virtual reality, he has published over 150 research papers including co-authoring Computational Principles of Mobile Robotics with Gregory Dudek and a series of co-edited books on human and machine vision with Laurence Harris.

His current research interests include work on sensing strategies for AQUA, an amphibious autonomous robot being developed as a collaboration between Dalhousie University, McGill University and York University; the development of tools and techniques to support crime scene investigation; and the understanding of the perception of self-motion and orientation in unusual environments including microgravity.

Stephen Perelgut is IBM's University Relations Manager in Canada. He coordinates IBM's overall relationships with colleges and universities, including research collaboration, recruiting, sales and technology transfer. He graduated from Engineering Science at the University of Toronto in 1979, took a few years off to work, and returned for an MSc in Computer Science from UofT in 1984. His work experience includes the compiler group at Bell-Northern Research (now Northern Telecom), a small university spin-off (Holt Software Associates, Inc.), and IBM where he worked on the COBOL compilers for IBM's i-series computers before joining the Centre for Advanced Studies. Over the course of his career, Stephen has chaired an NSERC Grant Selection Committee, helped run a large, international conference on Software Engineering, chaired the Canadian Consortium for Software Engineering Research, and taught courses to university undergraduates. In his "spare" time, Stephen researches applications of social computing technologies in business.

Dominik Slezak received his PhD in computer science in 2002 from Warsaw University, Poland. In an instructional capacity, he has successfully supervised more than ten graduate students in Canada and Poland. He has pursued academic collaborations with Warsaw University, the University of Regina, and the Polish-Japanese Institute of Information Technology. Currently, he is working as chief scientist for Infobright, Inc. Dominik serves as an associate editor and reviewer for a number of international scientific journals, and chair of several international scientific conferences. He has published over 50 pier-reviewed papers for books, journals, and conference proceedings. He has delivered a number of invited talks in Canada, China, Egypt, India, Japan, Korea, Poland, Russia, and the United Kingdom. His research interests are related mainly to rough sets, data warehousing, data mining, KDD, and bio-informatics, as well as medical and multi-media data analysis.

Nick Cercone has been the dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering, and a professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, since 2006. He is the conference chair of the present ISMIS Conference. He received his BS degree in engineering science from the University of Steubenville in 1968, a MS degree in computer and information science from Ohio State University in 1970, and a PhD in computing science from the University of Alberta in 1975.

Previously, Dr. Cercone was professor and dean of the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Prior to that, he was Chair of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. From 1993 until 1997, he was Associate Vice President (Research), Dean of Graduate Studies, and International Liaison Officer at the University of Regina. Formerly, he was Director of the Centre for Systems Science at Simon Fraser University (1987-1992) and chairman of the School of Computing Science (1980-1985) at Simon Fraser.

Dean Cercone's research interests include natural language processing, knowledge-based systems, knowledge-discovery in databases, data mining, and design and human interfaces. He is the author of over 300 refereed publications and has graduated 70 graduate students.

Parke Godfrey is an associate professor of computer science & engineering at York University (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), having joined the faculty in 1999. He has also been on the faculties of American University (Washington, DC, USA) and the College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia, USA). He is an IBM CAS (Centre for Advanced Studies) Faculty Fellow. He has a PhD in computer science from the University of Maryland (1999), an MS in computer and information science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a BS in mathematical sciences from the University of North Carolina.

His research interests are in databases, how to improve their efficiency (optimization), and how to improve their utility. He is interested in how database technology can be better leveraged for data-intense applications for which database systems are currently not well suited. His recent focus has been in preference and skyline queries.

Jarek Gryz is an associate professor of computer science & engineering at York University (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), having joined the faculty in 1997. He has long been an IBM CAS (Centre for Advanced Studies) Faculty Fellow. He has a PhD in computer science from the University of Maryland (1997), and masters and bachelors degrees in philosophy from the University of Warsaw.

His key research focus has been in the area of query optimization, in which he has published numerous articles in leading conferences and journals, and in which he holds several joint patents. His students have gone to work for IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. He has research interests in information integration and cooperative query answering. He has a background in artificial intelligence and logics, and a keen interest in the meet of AI, information systems, and philosophy.