User:Sciencemag
From Scienceguild
Sciencemag, the original Guild Master of the Science guild, is a female Blood Elf hunter who has some tenuous connection with a male Human social scientist named William Sims Bainbridge.
His personal URL is http://mysite.verizon.net/wsbainbridge/
William Sims Bainbridge earned his doctorate in sociology from Harvard University in 1975, with a dissertation based on research about the space program. He is the author of 13 published books, 4 textbook-software packages, and about 200 shorter publications in information science, social science of technology, and the sociology of religion. Most recently, he is the editor of the Berkshire Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction and author of God from the Machine (a 2006 study using artificial intelligence techniques to understand religious belief); Nanoconvergence (a 2007 analysis of the unification of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and new technologies based on the cognitive sciences), and Across the Secular Abyss (a 2007 consideration of the societal implications of secularization). With Mihail Roco, he co-edited Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (2001), Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology II (2006), Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance (2003), Nanotechnology: Societal Implications - Improving Benefits for Humanity (2005) and Managing Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno Innovations: Converging Technologies in Society (2006).
He has published extensively on new religious movements, including the general textbook, The Sociology of Religious Movements (1997), and sociological case studies of two movements: Satan's Power (1978) and The Endtime Family (2002). With Rodney Stark, he wrote three books outlining a general social-scientific approach to religion: The Future of Religion (1985), A Theory of Religion (1987), and Religion, Deviance and Social Control (1996). His software employed innovative techniques to teach theory and methodology: Experiments in Psychology (1986), Sociology Laboratory (1987), Survey Research (1989), and Social Research Methods and Statistics (1992). He has just finished a book about World of Warcraft, tentatively titled Warcraft Civilization. He is currently working on two new book manuscripts, under these working titles: Personality Capture and The Future in Virtual Worlds.
At the National Science Foundation since 1992, he represented the social and behavioral sciences on five advanced technology initiatives: High Performance Computing and Communications, Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence, Digital Libraries, Information Technology Research, and Nanotechnology, before joining the staff of the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. More recently he has represented computer science on the Nanotechnology initiative and the Human and Social Dynamics initiative. Currently, he is program director for Human-Centered Computing, after having directed the Sociology, Human Computer Interaction, Science and Engineering Informatics, and Artificial Intelligence programs.
