Ahmed K. Elmagarmid

Dr Ahmed K. Elmagarmid (born 1954) is a computer scientist, academic, and executive. He is currently the Executive Director of Qatar Computing Research Institute in Doha, Qatar. Until 2010, he was a full Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University and the director of the Purdue Cyber Center.

He served as Chief Scientist for The Hewlett-Packard Company during HP’s acquisition of Compaq. He also held executive positions with Telcordia Technologies (formerly known as Bell Communications Research) and Harris Corporation. He is a well-known researcher and the author of more than 200 articles, books, and patents in the areas of database and workflow management systems.

Early life and education

Ahmed K. Elmagarmid was born in Libya in 1954. He received his Bachelor of Science in computer science from the University of Dayton in 1977 and a Ph.D. in computer science from Ohio State University in 1985.

Work

He taught at Pennsylvania State University before joining Purdue University in 1988. While at Purdue University, Elmagarmid founded two successful organizations with funding from the Lilly Endowment and the State of Indiana: the Indiana Center for Database Systems (ICDS) and the Cyber Center (CC). He was responsible for the development of ICDS, securing its initial funding and growing it into the largest academic database group in the United States. His second organizational initiative, The Cyber Center at Discovery Park, promotes information technology and cyber infrastructure across the whole of Purdue University. The Cyber Center is the best funded unit in Purdue’s history, receiving a grant for $105M grant from National Science Foundation. He also founded and led for 3 years a third research center, the Indiana Telemedicine Incubator.

Elmagarmid was appointed corporate Chief Scientist for Hewlett-Packard during HP’s acquisition of Compaq, reporting to the technology council of HP and to the rest of the executive leadership team on competitive threats, deviations and changes in strategies, divestiture, and possible new acquisitions. He also was in charge of product road maps and web services strategy for the company.

He served as Chief of Data Quality at Telcordia Technologies, working on several key applications, including the 1-800 telephone billing system. At Harris Corporation, Elmagarmid was brought in to ensure the timely completion of a large Harris Commercial System’s Southern Company contract for the new XA/21 power control station system.

Between 2006 and 2010, Elmagarmid had served as an advisor to Qatar Foundation to develop a research initiative led by Arab Expatriate Scientists, creating institutes and large-scale projects in various areas of science and technology. He serves as an advisor to the Sidra Medical and Research Center, which is be one of the world’s most advanced women and children’s hospitals.

In 1994, he worked with SOGEI in Italy to establish standards for data quality for the Italian Treasury. He worked as an advisor to the Italian Authority for Public Administration (AIPA), an arm of the Italian Government that audits data quality processes for several government systems. He also worked for Techno Padova, an arm of the Chamber of Commerce in the Veneto region in Italy, and lectured at the University of Padova.

Professional recognition

Elmagarmid is an IEEE fellow,^[1] an ACM fellow^[2] and as AAAS fellow.^[3] He received the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Young Investigator Award^[4] in 1988. Ohio State University and the University of Dayton have both named him among their distinguished alumni.

Elmagarmid has chaired and served on several program committees and served on several editorial boards. He was the general chair of the 2010 ACM SIGMOD

Publications

Books^[5]

• McIver, William J. and Elmagarmid, A.K. Advances in Digital Government, Kluwer Academic Press, 2002. 978-1402070679.^[6]

• Bougettaya, A, Benatallah, B., and A.K., Elmagarmid. Interconnecting Heterogeneous Information Systems, Kluwer Academic Press, 1998. 978-0792382164.^[7]

• Elmagarmid, A.K., Rusinkiewics, M., Sheth, A. Management of Heterogeneous and Autonomous Database Systems. Published by Morgan Kaufmann, Oct. 1998, 432 pages. ISBN 978-1-55860-216-8.^[8]

• Elmagarmid, A.K., Jiang, H., Helal, A., Joshi, A., and M. Ahmed. Video Data Bases: Issues, Products and Applications. Kluwer Academic Press, March 1997. 978-0792398721.^[9]

• Bukhres, O.A. and Elmagarmid, A.K., eds. (1995). Object-Oriented Multidatabase Systems. Prentice Hall Publishing. 978-0131038134.^[10]

• Elmagarmid, A.K. (Editor). Database Transaction Models for Advanced Applications. Published by Morgan Kauffman Press, Mar. 1992, 611 pages. ISBN 978-1-55860-214-4.^[11]

Journals

• Axel Heitmuller, Sarah Henderson, Will Warburton, Ahmed Elmagarmid, Alex Pentland and Ara Darzi. Developing public policy to advance the use of Big Data in health care. Health Affairs, September 2014. 33:1523-1530.

References

External links

• Home page at Qatar Computing Research Institute
• Qatar Computing Research Institute