Naresh Kumar Agarwal

H Blk 319, Jurong East St 31, #10-50, Singapore 600319 ¡ È+65 91442726

* nareshag@gmail.com  ¡  " http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~naresh

 

Objective

Faculty or post-doctoral position (Information Systems/Information Science) in a prestigious University leading to a distinguished career in Academia

 

Education

Teaching Assistant / Ph.D. Candidate (Information Systems), School of Computing, National University of Singapore; passed Thesis Proposal; B.A.Sc. – Comp Engg. (Hons.) NTU; Singapore Airlines Scholar; School & State Topper; Record Holder

 

Research Areas

Behavioral Information Retrieval, Information and Knowledge Management, Human-Computer Interaction, Taxonomy, Personalization and related areas

 

Publications

JASIST(accepted), ICIS 2007, HCII 2007, PACIS 2007, IRMA 2007, etc.

 

Work Experience

3 years (Research/Teaching Assistant) +

5½ yrs (cross-functional & cross-industry exp.)

Teaching Experience

Tutoring an undergraduate Year 2 Enterprise Systems Development (CS2261) course; helping supervise undergraduate honors projects; mentored 2 students (Raffles Research Education Mentorship Program 2006); natural flair for teaching

Strengths/Skills

Teaching, research/analytical, technical, presentation/people & writing skills

Leadership

Chair, APRU Doctoral Students Network

Director, Academic Research & Cultural Affairs, NUS Graduate Students Society

Lab In-charge; Project Leader; Chief Architect; President, NTU Debating Society

Status

Singapore Permanent Resident (PR), Indian National, Born 28 Sept 1977

Education/RESEARCH

 

National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore

Jan 2005 - Present

            Ph.D. Candidate

Supervisors: A/P Danny C. C. Poo and Dr Yunjie (Calvin) Xu

Ph.D. Thesis Title / Research

n     Information-seeking Behavior Based on An Integrated Framework of Information Seeking and Information Retrieval

o         Study 1 (Theoretical) An Integrated Framework of Information Seeking and Information Retrieval

o         Study 2 (Experiment) Moderating Role of the Searcher’s Ability to Specify Information Need: Applying Task-Technology Fit to Information Searching and Retrieval

o         Study 3 (Survey) Least Effort versus Source Quality: A Context-based Investigation into the Source Choice Preference of Information Seekers

 

Modules/Grades

n     GPA (5.0/5.0) – CS5251 A+, CS5255 A+, CS5263 A+, TR5105 A+, CS4250 A+, CS6301 A, CS6302 A and CS6303 A

Thesis Proposal

n     Passed the Thesis Proposal and Doctoral Seminar

PhD Qualifying Examination

n     Transferred from the Graduate Program to Ph.D. Candidature after passing 2 QE Modules + Graduate Research Paper

Leadership/ Teamwork

n     Team leader for module projects (groups of 3-5)

n     Best Business Plan (CS5263 and TR5105)

Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore

Jul 1995 – May 1999

Honors Yr Proj.

 

Final Yr Project

n     Bachelor of Applied Science (Computer Engg.) – Honors (2nd Upper)

n     SIA/NOL Scholar (100% scholarship for undergrad studies in Singapore)

n     Jul 1998-Mar 1999 (with JVC Asia Pte Ltd) A scalable delivery scheme of MPEG-2 video streams in a Video-on-Demand system

n     Aug 1997 – Mar 1998 Internet Traffic Management using RSVP/RTP

Tashi Namgyal Academy (TNA), Gangtok, Sikkim, India

Jan 1982 –         Mar 1995

n     ISC (A-level equivalent) Topped setting new school record (91.75%)

n     ICSE (O-level equivalent) Topped setting new state record (91.8%)

skills

 

Teaching/Research skills

Research Training

Research training through empirical and theoretical research, extensive reading, modules, critical thinking

Teaching skills

Tutoring Enterprise Systems Development to undergraduates; helping supervise Honors Year undergraduate students; mentored 2 students (Raffles Institution Research Education Mentorship Program 2006); tutored at SINDA, natural flair for teaching – taught since secondary school

Analytical skills

Logical and rational approach to research issues

Writing skills

Creativity; good at writing

Presentation skills

People’s person; comfortable in addressing large audiences

Leadership/Teamwork

Chair, APRU DSN; Lab In-charge; helping supervise students; Director, GSS; Team leader in module groups; Project Leader; Chief Architect

Project Management

Project cost, schedule estimation/monitoring, resource allocation

Technical skills

Technical Experience

n     Software Development Life Cycle (Rational Unified Process/UML)

 

n     C/C++, Java, XML, ASP, JavaScript, Visual Basic, SQL Server 2000, TCP/IP, UNIX (Awk/Shell), Linux RedHat 7.3, Sun Solaris

n     Solution Architecture (R&D, picking up technologies, innovating solutions)

Varied Domain Experience

n     Behavioral Information Retrieval/Human-Computer Interaction (Taxonomy/Metadata); Digital Cinema Technology (Server solutions, GXF/MXF, MPEG-2); VoIP (H.323, H.245, SIP); BioInformatics (Genetic Issues; biological databases like GenBank, SwissProt, etc.); CRM

 

Soft Skills

 

Strategic Consulting

 

 

Business Skills

n     International Exposure (worked with global bodies)

n     Technology Gap Evaluations (studies, proposals and recommendations)

n     Communications (Interpersonal /Negotiating/Planning skills; team player)

n     Pre-sales (Selling / Customer relationship; business acumen)

RESEARCH INTERESTS

 

n     User Perspective of Information Searching and Information Retrieval (IR)

n     Behavioral Information Retrieval / Information Seeking and Behavior (ISB)

n     Information Sources

n     Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

n     Information Management

n     Taxonomy, Personalization and related areas

n     Knowledge Management (KM)

TEACHING/UNIVERSITY experience

 

National University of Singapore (Dept. of Information Systems, School of Computing)

 

Jul 2004 – present      Research/Teaching Assistant

                                 Ph.D. Candidate

Behavioral IR/ Information Seeking Supervisors: A/P Danny C. C. Poo and  Dr Yunjie (Calvin) Xu

 

Teaching Assistant /

 

Teaching-related experience

n     Teaching Assistant for CS2261 Enterprise Systems Development

o         Designing and conducting tutorial discussions/lab workshops (three 2-hour sessions per week)

o         Designing and managing project evaluations

o         Guiding and managing Honors Year tutors (10 in 2006-07; 8 in 2007-08)

o         Helping guide and solve student problems in a programming/lab-based module

o         Student assessment – ‘explains concepts clearly’, ‘able to explain difficult concepts’, ‘helpful’, ‘kind’, ‘friendly’, ‘very approachable’, ‘very patient and knowledgeable’ (Teaching Assessment Report, Semester 2, 2006/2007)

o         Managing all administrative aspects of the module

n     Helping guide undergraduate students on their Honors Year Projects

    2007-2008

    2006-2007

 

    2005-2006

(1 student) Concept Extraction and Presentation (CEPres)

(5 students) 3D Virtual Learning Environment, Concept Extraction

(11 students) Knowledge Community, Automatic Taxonomy Creation, Automatic Classification in Taxonomy, Localization/ Specialization/ Cues/ Personalization, Automated Content Gathering, Manual Content Gathering through school visits, corpus-based search, meta-search engines and inter-library loans

n     Co-supervised two Secondary 3 students (Joel Low Wor On and Benjamin Lau Wei Yii) under the Raffles Institution Research Education Mentorship Program 2006 on the project “Content and Metadata Population for the Education Taxonomy Portal”

Research Assistant

n     Developed the concepts for:

o         CEPres (Concept Extraction and Presentation). Project aims to extract concepts from documents and present them diagrammatically, saving reading time and helping to alleviate information overload. Helping guide the project. Prepared a business plan on the same.

o         K-Comm, a knowledge community to tap on the tacit knowledge residing within every single individual, enhancing one’s self worth in the process. Helped guide the project.

n     Wrote research grant proposals; CEPres awarded a grant of S$32,000

n     Engaged in a survey design on information sources

n     Engaged in experiment design to investigate the moderating role of the ability to specify information need on Query Expansion and Taxonomy.

n     Developed an Education Taxonomy Portal that will provide services to facilitate schools teachers and students to navigate and look for information effectively. The project will impact the entire education sector in Singapore and the region (Zope/Plone, CPSSkins, Python, Dell PowerEdge 2850 Server)

 

Lab       in-charge

n     Information Management Lab, School of Computing

PUBLICATIONS

 

Journal Publications (3)

 

n     Agarwal, N.K. and Poo, D.C.C. (accepted). An Integrated Model of Information Seeking and Information Retrieval. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST).

n     Agarwal, N.K. and Poo, D.C.C. (forthcoming). Capturing tacit knowledge across different domains: Knowledge Community (K-Comm). In A. Mitra (Ed.) Special Issue on Knowledge Management, Int. Journal of Business Information Systems (IJBIS).

n     Agarwal, N.K. and Poo, D.C.C. (2006). Meeting knowledge management challenges through effective search. Int. Journal of Business Information Systems (IJBIS), 1(3), 292-309.

 

Conference Publications (13)

 

n     Agarwal, N.K., Poo, D.C.C. and Tan, K.H. (accepted). Impediments to sharing knowledge outside the school: Lessons learnt from the development of a taxonomic e-learning portal. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2007) (Montreal, Canada, Dec 9-12, 2007).

n     Agarwal, N.K. and Poo, D.C.C. (2007). HCI and Information Search: Capturing Task and Searcher Characteristics through 'User Ability to Specify Information Need'. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2007) (Beijing, China, Jul 22-27, 2007), Berlin: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 373-382.

n     Agarwal, N.K, Poo, D.C.C. and Tan, K.H. (2007). Barriers to sharing knowledge across Singapore schools: Lessons Learnt from the development of the Educational Taxonomy Portal. In Proceedings of the 8th APRU Doctoral Students’ Conference (APRU DSC 2007) (Tokyo, Japan, Jul 30-Aug 3, 2007), Session 4, Stream 4.3 (ICT Adoption and Use in the Pacific Rim), 1-19.

n     Agarwal, N.K., Wang, Z., Xu, Y.(C.) and Poo, D.C.C. (2007). Factors Affecting 3G Adoption: An Empirical Study. In Proceedings of the 11th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS 2007) (Auckland, New Zealand, Jul 3-6).

n     Agarwal, N.K., Poo, D.C.C. and Leo, D.M.T. (2007). Developing Buddy: Towards greater dependability and maintainability in meta-search. In M. Khosrow-Pour (Ed.) Proceedings of the Information Resources Management Association Conference (IRMA 2007) (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, May 19-23), Hershey PA: IGI Global, 458-462.

n     Agarwal, N.K., Poo, D.C.C. and Teo, K.Y. (2006). Component-based Development of MILLS: A Case Study in the development of an Inter-Library Loan Software System. In P. Jalote (Ed.) Proceedings of the 13th Asia Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC06) (Bangalore, India, Dec 6-8), Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society, 37-44.

n     Agarwal, N.K. and Poo, D.C.C. (2006). Making sense of an Electronic Document – Visualization Strategies for Concept Presentation. In Proceedings of the 10th IEEE International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference Workshops (EDOCW’06) (Hong Kong, Oct 16-20), Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society, 56-59.

n     Agarwal, N.K. and Poo, D.C.C. (2006). Information Searcher-Provider Fit through Information Presentation and Visualization Techniques. In V.P. Guerrero-Bote (Ed.) International Conference on Multidisciplinary Information Sciences and Technologies (InSciT2006) (Merida, Spain, Oct 25-28), Merida: Open Institute of Knowledge (Instituto Abierto del Conocimiento), 69-73.

n     Agarwal, N.K. (2006) Effective Information Management through an Information Searcher-Provider Fit Framework. 7th APRU Doctoral Students Conference (Singapore, Jul 17-21), Panel 7.3.

n     Agarwal, N.K., Poo, D.C.C. and Goh, J.M. (2005). Managing Quality of Information Retrieval for Effective Knowledge Management. In Proceedings of the 3rd World Conference for Software Quality (3WCSQ) (Munich, Germany, Sept. 26-30), I, 205-214.

n     Agarwal, N.K., Gupta, A.K., Bin, W. and Barbosa, L.O. (1999). Scaleable Delivery Mechanism for VBR MPEG-2 Video Streams over the Internet. In Proceedings of the IEEE Pacific RIM Conference on Communications, Computers and Signal Processing (PacRim '99) (Victoria, B.C., Canada, Aug 23-25), 284-287.

 

n     Shaw, V., Wahab, A., Agarwal, N.K. and Chan, G. (1998). Adaptive Traffic Management Model For Internet/electronic Commerce. In Proceedings of the 17th IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE’98) (Los Angeles, CA, Jun 2-4), Digest of Technical Papers, 24-25.

n     Shaw, V.M., Wahab, A., Sung, S. and Agarwal, N.K. (1998). An Intelligent Web Browser for Internet/Electronic Commerce. In Proceedings of the 17th IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE’98) (Los Angeles, CA, Jun 2-4), Digest of Technical Papers, 80-81.

 

Book Chapter (1)

 

n     Agarwal, N.K. and Poo, D.C.C. (2007). Collaborating to search effectively in different searcher modes through Cues and Specialty Search. In D.H. Goh and S. Foo (Eds.) Social Information Retrieval Systems: Emerging Technologies and Applications for Searching the Web Effectively, Idea Group Inc.

     workshops/seminars/presentations

 

International

 

n     Presented paper “HCI and Information Search: Capturing Task and Searcher Characteristics through 'User Ability to Specify Information Need'” at the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Beijing, China on Jul 26, 2007

n     Presented paper “Factors Affecting 3G Adoption: An Empirical Study” at the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, Auckland, New Zealand on Jul 5, 2007

n     Presented paper “Making sense of an Electronic Document – Visualization Strategies for Concept Presentation” at the IEEE EDM Workshop 2006, Hong Kong on Oct 17, 2006.

 

Asia-Pacific / Regional

 

n     Made a plenary presentation on the Doctoral Students Network at the APRU Doctoral Students Conference 2007, Tokyo, Japan on 1 Aug 2007

n     Presented paper “Barriers to sharing knowledge across Singapore schools: Lessons Learnt from the development of the Educational Taxonomy Portal” at the APRU Doctoral Students Conference 2007, Tokyo, Japan on 30 Jul 2007

n     Presented paper “Effective Information Management through an Information Searcher-Provider Fit Framework” on July 19, 2006, Panel 7.3 at the 7th APRU Doctoral Students Conference, Singapore

n     Member of NTU E-Commerce Research Team that made a presentation on the Technical/Business Architecture of CommerceNet at the Asia Card '98 Conference, June 25-27 1998 Singapore.

 

Faculty

 

n     Presented research direction “Towards an Information Provider-Finder Fit Framework” at the Information Systems Research Workshop, School of Computing, NUS, 19 July 2005.

n     Presented the research on Education Taxonomy Portal to senior school students and teachers at NITA (National IT Awareness), School of Computing, NUS, Mar 19, 2005

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS and service

 

2007-present 

 

 

2007-present 

2006-2007

n     Chair, Association of Pacific-Rim Universities Doctoral Students Network (APRU DSN); will direct the activities of APRU DSN and assist in the successful organization of the 9th APRU Doctoral Students Conference (APRU DSC 2008), Vladivostok, Russia.

n     Member, Association of Information Systems

n     Member, Executive Committee, APRU DSN

Reviewer

International Journal

Aug-Sep 2007

 

Jul/Oct 2006

Ad-hoc reviewer (1 paper) – European Journal of Information Systems

Ad-hoc reviewer (2 papers) – Information and Management

International Conference

Jun 2007

 

May 2007

 

Nov 2006

Jun 2006

Ad-hoc reviewer (1 paper), International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2007)

Peer reviewer (2 papers), Americas’ Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2007)

Peer reviewer (2 papers) – HCI International 2007

Ad-hoc reviewer (2 papers), International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2006)

Book Chapter

Jul 2006

Peer reviewer for 2 book chapters – D.H. Goh and S. Foo (Eds.) Social Information Retrieval Systems: Emerging Technologies and Applications for Searching the Web Effectively, Idea Group Inc.

INDUSTRY experience

 

Digital Cinema Technology

GDC Technology Ltd

May 2003 – Mar 2004

Singapore, India (Bollywood), USA (Hollywood/Dallas/Orlando)

n     Key member of GDC’s R&D team developing its suite of Digital Cinema Servers; Spearheaded GDC’s Digital Cinema Interoperability effort towards a common exchange standard. Demonstrated ShowEast 2003, Orlando, Florida (Sep 29–Oct 2); worldwide press release (GXF, C/C++, Linux 7.3, DSR Server)

n     Worked with the Indian Film Industry, Mumbai to upgrade Indian theatres with digital cinema server solutions; Supported GDC’s presence in India, USA and Singapore.

n     Worked with Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI), Disney, Hollywood studios to finalize Digital Cinema Specifications; Worked actively with Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) to formulate/demonstrate new Digital Cinema Interoperability standard based on MXF (Material Exchange Format)

BioInformatics

HeliXense Pte Ltd

Mar 2002 – Dec 2002

Singapore

n     Key member of HeliXense’s R&D team developing genomics Research Network Architecture for life-sciences research; Designed automated DataHounds to enable bio-scientists to manipulate terabytes of biological data (Java/XML/DTDs/JDOM/ Java Messaging Service  (JMS), Linux 7.2, biological databases)

n     Made sales presentations in Biotech fairs – BioMalaysia Oct 1-4 2002 Kuala Lumpur, BioMedical Asia Oct 28-30 2002, BioCamp Nov 25-29 2002 Singapore

n     Developed course-curriculum for the Bio-data Management courses to be offered by the Asian Centre for Genomics, the education arm of HeliXense; Trained local universities on life-sciences infrastructure

CRM / Mobile Communications

Innova Solutions

Feb 2001 – Feb 2002

Singapore, USA (Santa Clara, CA) India (Hyderabad)

n     Core member of Innova’s Strategic Technology Group, which evaluated technology gaps and created Intellectual Property in e-business, CRM and mobile communications

n     Managed a 5-member team that developed a Multi-CRM Transformation System for the Japanese Healthcare market using US-manufactured medical products (Japanese Kanji, ASP, Java/JDBC, Activex, SQL Server 2000, Unicode)

n     Chief Architect for building a rules-based Transformation Engine for conversion between healthcare standards (HL7/X12/EDI/XML) and XML (Java/Servlets/JSP/XML)

n     Proposed an Integrated Communications Portal Platform that will provide next generation services for people in diverse environments to reach out to each other.

n     As part of Innova’s IP-creation initiatives, documented technology gap proposals in areas of Priority Routing, Peer-Peer, 3G mobile networks, location control, etc.; Part of Innova’s technical arm for its business initiatives in areas of voice-mail systems, rules-based engines, XML, VoIP, etc.

n     Reengineered the Trace&Track components of a CRM system (ClearView 360°) that provides a unified 360° view of a customer to the enterprise (Java, JSP, SQL Server, CRM Systems); Designed and developed the stock modules of an application for loan/accounts/inventory management (Visual Basic 6, SQL Svr. 2000, Spread Control 6.5)

Voice-over-IP / Telecommunications

MediaRing Ltd

May 1999 – Feb 2001

Singapore

n     Member of 5-people Server R&D team providing the backbone of VoIP services (like PC-PC, PC-Phone, VoizMail, etc.) for more than 7 million users worldwide; Reengineered the back-end infrastructure of MediaRing to handle all call-scenarios including PC-PC/PC-Phone using the latest SIP VoIP protocol; Developed a fully automated suite for statistical analysis of Call Detail Records logged by the Proxy Server during PC-Phone calls.  Suite facilitates business analysis based on call-minutes nearing 700,000 minutes/day (C++/C, Unix Shell scripting, SUN Solaris)

n     Designed a Proxy Server interface to enable the MediaRing Gatekeeper to interoperate with Genuity Gateway/ Gatekeeper for routing PC-Phone calls (H.323/H.245 protocols, C++, Solaris)

n     Designed a recovery tool (Proxy Recovery System) to handle Billing/Proxy failure (C/C++, SUN Solaris)

Telecommunications

Hewlett-Packard Singapore

Jan 1997 – Jun 1997

Singapore

n     Undergrad Industrial Attachment Developer in a 15-member R&D team for the design of TELMEX SRT, a real-time, multi-machine telecommunications system with emphasis on Disaster Recovery.

AWARDS / EXTRA CURRICULAR ACTIVITIEs

 

2006-2007

Director

n     Academic, Research and Cultural Affairs, Graduate Students’ Society, NUS

 

 

2005-present

Lab In-charge

n     Information Management Lab, School of Computing, NUS

 

 

1998-1999

President

n     NTU Debating Society

 

 

1996-1999

Debater/ Adjudicator

n     Top 15 in NTU, Member of NTU Inter-Varsity Debating Squad

n     AIDA-certified International Debates Adjudicator

 

 

1995

SIA/NOL Scholar

n     Undergraduate Studies in Singapore

 

 

1995

Best All-Round Student

n     Founder’s Medal, highest award of Tashi Namgyal Academy

 

 

1994

School Captain

n     Tashi Namgyal Academy

 

 

1994

Vice President

n     All Sikkim Students’ Association

 

ARTISTIC / CREATIVE CAPABILITIES

 

1983-2007

 

 

Painter/ Artist

n     Passion for Fine Arts with works in oil, watercolor, pencil

n     To be featured in the Traveling Palette, Mediacorp TV12 (painting/shooting in Manila, Philippines, Oct 5-7, 2007).

n     Exhibited 5 paintings at the NUS Arts Festival Open Art Show, March 13-18, 2007, University Cultural Centre, NUS

n     Solo Exhibition (13 paintings), “Expressions in Watercolor & Oil”, Feb 20 – Mar 17, 2006, ArtsBuzz, NUS Central Library

n     1st Prize twice, Perceptions & Expressions, NTU (1998,99)

 

 

2004-2007

Model/Actor

n     Part-time roles in Mediacorp Singapore Channel 5 True Files Seasons 3 and 4, Killer Waves, MTV Rouge, Singapore Tourism Board shoot, etc.

 

 

1977-2007

Multi-lingual

n     Fluent in spoken/written English, Hindi, Nepali, Rajasthani; learnt little of Tamil, Bengali, French & Mandarin

 

REFERENCES

 

n     Available on request