Athens, Ga. — Richard T. Watson has been named a Fellow of the Association for Information Systems (AIS). Watson holds the J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy in the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. He also serves as director of the college’s Center for Information Systems Leadership and is interim head of the Management Information Systems Department.
AIS is the world’s preeminent professional society for information systems academics. Watson joins 40 other AIS Fellows from around the world and is the second to be so honored from UGA. Hugh J. Watson (no relation) was named an AIS Fellow in 2004.
Richard Watson served as president of AIS in 2004-05, co-conference chair for the International Conference on Information Systems in 2004 and as a senior editor for MIS Quarterly. While a senior editor for MIS Quarterly, he established its “Review” section.
He has published more than 100 journal articles and written texts on electronic commerce and data management. His research has been accepted by leading academic and practitioner journals and has been translated into several languages. He has given invited seminars in more than 20 countries.
In 2001, John Wiley & Sons appointed Watson as its consulting editor for its net-enhanced organization (NEO) series. He is a visiting professor at Agder University College in Norway and Fudan University in China. He is also an honorary advisor to the Neusoft Institute for Information in China.
With Don McCubbrey of the University of Denver, Watson is leading the Global Text Project. The goal of the project is to create 1,000 open-content texts for university students in the developing world. The first book will be an introductory information systems text.
Watson received his doctorate from the University of Minnesota, where he studied on a Fulbright award, and his MBA from Monash University in Australia. In addition, he holds a diploma in computation and a bachelor of science in mathematics from the University of Western Australia.
