I am very pleased to announce that yesterday Hesham Allam, a part-time instructor SIM instructor (MIM program), successfully defended his PhD dissertation: Social, technical, and organizational determinants of employees’ participation in enterprise social tagging tools: A conceptual model and an empirical investigation.  Please join me in congratulating Dr. Allam.

It is with pleasure that I inform you that Dr.  Anatoliy Gruzd has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor, with tenure, in the School of Information Management. At every level of the tenure and promotion process, it was noted that Dr. Gruzd has excelled in the areas of teaching, research, and contributions to the discipline and the profession. We at SIM consider ourselves privileged to work with Dr. Gruzd:  He is a gracious, giving, collaborative, and generous colleague and is an integral part of the School of Information Management.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Gruzd.

Congratulations to SIM lecturer Paul McKenna for his role in a national policing summit as reported in Today@Dal.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that Dr. Peter Wells has been appointed as Adjunct Professor in the School of Information Management.  Dr. Wells has been associated with SIM for several years, and has been involved in several collaborative research projects with SIM faculty members and students. Dr. Wells has served on MLIS thesis committees, and will be actively involved in delivering the new MLIS course INFO 6850 Special Topics in Information Management: Role of Information in Public Policy Decision Making.

Dr. Wells is also an Adjunct Professor in the School for Resource and Environmental Studies and the Marine Affairs Program, Faculty of Management, and a Senior Research Fellow, International Ocean Institute, at Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS.  Dr. Wells retired June 30th, 2006, from Environment Canada, his last position being the Head, Coastal and Water Science Section, and a Senior Research Scientist, Coastal Ecosystems, Environmental Conservation Branch, Environment Canada (Dartmouth, NS).   Dr. Wells worked for the Canadian Federal Government for 34 years, starting with the Fisheries Research Board of Canada (FRBC) in 1969, and with Environment Canada in 1974.   Dr. Wells has a B.Sc. in Biology (McGill University, 1967), a Master of Science in Zoology (University of Toronto, 1969) and a Ph.D. in Zoology (University of Guelph, 1976).  Dr. Wells retired to pursue further teaching, research and writing in marine ecotoxicology and management, and community service on issues affecting coastal and oceanic environments of the Bay of Fundy, Gulf of Maine and North-west Atlantic.

Dr. Wells holds other academic appointments at the International Ocean Institute, Dalhousie University, the Acadia Centre for Estuarine Research, Acadia University, and the Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick.  At Dalhousie, Dr. Wells teaches and supervises graduate students in marine environmental science (ecotoxicology, environmental indicators, ecological risk assessment, land-based marine pollution), marine affairs, and environmental informatics. Dr. Wells is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2000); recipient of the SETAC Presidential Citation  for exemplary Service, 2002; recipient of Dalhousie University’s 2002-2003 Sessional and Part-time Instructor Award of Excellence for Teaching  (2003);  in 2004, a co-winner with Dalhousie colleagues of the Grey Net Award for best paper at the International Conference on Grey Literature (GL5), Amsterdam, 2003; in 2006, winner of BoFEP’s Environmental Stewardship Award, and the Government of Canada’s Public Service Award; and in 2009, was inducted into Sigma XI, the Scientific Honour Society.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Wells to SIM; we are most honoured to have him on our team.

Anatoliy Gruzd, Director of the Social Media Lab at SIM, was interviewed yesterday afternoon (10/30/2012) on CBC Mainstreet regarding social media conversations surrounding the superstorm Sandy and how false information during an emergency can be spread via Twitter.

You can listen to the interview here on the CBC website.