Ken Sochats is this year's Carnegie Science Center Award for Excellence in IT winner. He has over thirty years of experience in the Computer and Telecommunications industries. He holds advanced degrees in Electrical Engineering and Business Administration. After spending several years at Westinghouse Electric Corporation where his work resulted in several inventions and patents, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently the Director of the Visual Information Systems Center and Assistant Professor of Information Science and Telecommunications. He has taught over twenty-five different courses in telecommunications, computing, systems and business.

While on leave last year, he helped co-found BroadStreet Communications Corporation a next-generation telecommunications company. BroadStreet has attracted over $180 million in startup capital. He served as Vice President of Information Systems.

He currently also serves as the manager of the Link To Learn Project out of The Governor’s Office of Information Technology. This group annually produces the Pennsylvania Technology Atlas. The Progress and Freedom Foundation named the Link To Learn Project their 1998 Best Practice in the Educational Technology category.

Ken serves on The Telecommunications advisory panel of Governor Ridge’s Pennsylvania Regional Development Committee and as a consultant to the Keystone Telecommunications Project and the Governor's Policy Committee. For the past two years, he served on the Governor's Year 2000 Technical Outreach Committee, which was responsible for helping Pennsylvanians prepare for the Y2K computer problem. His group at the Joint State/Federal Y2K Conference was awarded the University Continuing Education Association’s Award of Excellence.

He has served as a consultant to over 35 organizations of all types. Government/agencies at the federal, state and local levels include Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, State of New York, Westmoreland County, US Departments of Defense, Agriculture and Energy and NASA. Private firms include ALCOA, USAirways, Penn Access, Hyperion, Brightline, American Hytech and numerous smaller companies.

Ken was principal investigator of the group that performed the preliminary design and analysis work that resulted in the establishment of the Penn Access CAP network in Pittsburgh.

His publications include three books and over 30 Journal papers and conference proceeding papers.

Dennis Galletta is an associate professor of business administration at the Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh. He obtained his doctorate in 1985 at the University of Minnesota (major advisor: Gordon B. Davis) with a major in management information systems and a minor in psychology. His specific research interests lie in the areas of end-user attitudes, behavior, and performance; and electronic commerce.

He teaches Human-Computer Interaction to PhD and MBA students and Electronic Commerce to MBA students and executives He has published articles in 8 MIS journals and a textbook. He served as editor of SIGOIS Bulletin, the newsletter of the ACM Special Interest Group on Office Information Systems, and is on the editorial boards of three journals, including the MIS Quarterly, Data Base, and Cycle Time Research. He is also an active reviewer for 10 other journals and several conferences, and is currently VP of Member Services for AIS.

He served as the ICIS Treasurer from 1994-1998, chaired the Inaugural AIS Americas Conference on Information Systems in 1995, was a member of AIS Council representing the Americas in 1996 and 1997, and taught information systems courses on the Fall 1999 voyage of Semester at Sea.

As a CPA, he has public accounting experience and has taught Continuing Professional Education courses for the Pennsylvania Institute of CPAs and Half Moon Seminars. On Sunday evenings, he sometimes teaches 10th grade CCD at St. Catherine of Sweden Church in the North Hills of Pittsburgh.