SERVICE

1998-now, Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University

• Graduate Committee Member (July 2002 - now). I perform reviews of student files for scholarship allocation, I initiate and contribute to policy making, and I keep track of the Faculty of Graduate Studies scholarship allocation spending via a spreadsheet I designed.

• Sabbatical leave grants review committee (February 2009 - now). As a member of the committee, I review applications for Sabbatical leave grants by university faculty, and I participate in an annual committee meeting.

• APICS-CS 2009 Program Chair. I was responsible for organizing the submission and review process and communication with authors through the EasyChair conference management system. Furthermore, I put together the review panel for the Best paper/poster award competition, designed the review forms, and coordinated the process and compilation of the results.

• Graduate Director (February 1999 - July 2002). Main contributions, beyond the day to day administration of the graduate program, student advising and orientation sessions for new graduate students, have been the following:
  • With the Graduate Committee, I articulated, developed and got Faculty approval for academic and operational policies of the Graduate program. I compiled, published and maintain on the Web a complete set of rules and regulations of our graduate program. The new policies and Web resources I created have made it possible to cope with the substantial rate of growth of the program, while improving transparency and fairness, and to promote both the research and the professional component of the program.
    (URL: http://www.cs.dal.ca/~gradweb/gradSite/grad.html).
  • I established, with the Graduate Committee, policies on graduate student funding, in the form of funding packages (scholarship, teaching and research assistantships) to the students who are academically excellent and show promise of significant contribution to the research of the Faculty.
  • I established, with the Graduate Committee, a structure for the PhD program, and especially the comprehensive/qualifying examination process, that is consistent with that of other North American research-intensive computer science departments.

• Faculty Search Committee. As a member of the committee, I help screen applicants for faculty positions, assisted with the hosting of the applicants during interviews, and participated in the decision making process of making offers. Meets weekly or more often during interview season.

• Search & Selection and Tenure & Promotions Regulations Committee Chair. The committee established regulations for the search & selection and the tenure & promotions process, to ensure quality and fairness in the process in conformance with the DFA collective agreement and the already established standards in older Faculties, such as the Faculty of Science.

• Dean's Executive Committee, Faculty of Computer Science. The committee is an advisory body to the Dean. Meets weekly for 1.5 hour.

• Scholarship Committee, Faculty of Graduate Studies. The committee reviews new Killam applications and renewals, other miscellaneous scholarship applications in the winter term, and deals with the second-round allocation of FGS scholarship funds in the fall term. It also discusses graduate scholarship policy issues.

• Council of the Faculty of Graduate Studies. The Council approves all Faculty decisions having to do with graduate studies at Dalhousie, such as program approvals, program reviews, and policy issues of the Faculty itself (such as membership). Meets monthly for 1.5 hour.

• Search committee for the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies. An ad-hoc committee. Met several times for setting the terms of reference of the search, and review applicants. Interviewed long-list applicants over a full day on a Saturday.

• Electronic Commerce Executive Committee (Sept. 1998 - May 2000). As a member of the committee (and chair from November 1998 till February of 1999), I participated in formulating policy for the Master's of Electronic Commerce Program, and in student advising. I also authored a web site (in terms of content) including the evolving rules and regulations of the program and to reduce the administrative load of handling inquiries by prospective applicants. The content of the current web site http://www.ecomm.dal.ca/ evolved out of the web site I created with the rules, and a previous web site that contained an overview and general information about the program.

• Electronic Commerce course for the Federal Government. I handled the administration of this course that was offered in Ottawa for the first time in April-June of 1999. My work involved interfacing with the Institute for Government Information Professionals on administrative and academic matters associated with this course offering, interfacing with the instructors, and articulating a structure for this course. The web site http://www.cs.dal.ca/~eem/igip/igip.html contains this organization.

• Organizer of a conference for computer science in secondary education. This event was aimed at raising the profile and reputation of the new Faculty of Computer Science among high-school teachers of Computer Science in Nova Scotia. The event attracted about 50 teachers from around the Province and consisted of overviews of various aspects of our program given by faculty members, accompanied by a presentation by a representative of the Department of Education and Culture, and concluded with a panel discussion led by teachers (URL: http://users.cs.dal.ca/~outreach/2004/).

1991 - 1998, Department of Computer Science, York University

• Promotion and Tenure Committee, Department of Computer Science (1994-1995).

• Executive and Appointments Committee: Main task involved recruitment of faculty members (1991-1994).

• Graduate Executive Committee: Coauthor of the proposal to establish a Doctoral Programme in Computer Science at York University (with P. Dymond and M. Jenkin). The proposal was successful, and the Ph.D. program started in September 1996. Formulated and documented student funding policy and satisfactory progress policy for the Master's degree program. (1994-1995).

• Space and Communications Science (SCS) Program Coordinator. Involved detailed discussions and negotiations with students, the Chairs of the Departments of Physics and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and the Dean of the Faculty of Science in an assessment and revision of the SCS program, an elite program at York preparing students for work in the space, computer and telecommunications industry. As coordinator for four years, I advised students and worked on curriculum issues. (1991-1996)

• Seneca Computer Engineering Technology Program: I worked (with M. Jenkin) on the advanced standing assessment of Seneca Computer Engineering Technology Program. The task involved discussions with members of the Seneca and the York Science faculty (1992-1993).

• First-Year language Committee: I worked on a report regarding the suitability of the programming language ``Scheme'' for the November 1992 meeting of the committee.

• Ariel Environment Committee: Administration of the teaching computing facility (1991-1993).

• Undergraduate Admissions Committee, Faculty of Science (1992-1995).

• Curriculum Commitees, Department of Computer Science, and Faculty of Science (1992-1995).

• Frequent speaker on Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision to high school groups.

1988 - 1991, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto

• Artificial Intelligence Seminar coordinator (1988 - 1991).
• M.Sc. Admissions Committee (1990-1991).
• Information Technology Research Centre (ITRC) Industry Liaison, (1988 - 1990): Served as the initial contact between ITRC industry affiliates and members of the AI group. A major contribution from this position was the establishment and coordination of the research network between the University of Toronto, York University, Ontario Hydro, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, and the National Research Council of Canada. This network was awarded a major grant by PRECARN Assoc. Ltd. for research in the area of vision-guided mobile robotics (also in section on Research funding).