Following the other accounts of nominees is hard business indeed! In any case, I'm deeply flattered to be nominated to an Open Seat by Nancy Baym. Some particulars: My publications are in ethics(interdisciplinary, East/West), hypertext and democratization, history of philosophy, Continental philosophy, feminist biblical studies, and philosophical perspectives on CMC. I've edited two volumes on computer-mediated communication - the second with Fay Sudweeks. With Fay Sudweeks, I've co-chaired two international and interdisciplinary conferences on "Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication" (CATaC). I've given invited lectures at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Paderborn (Germany), the Open University (Milton Keynes, UK), Ohio University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. I¹ve lived abroad for three years (Germany, Switzerland, France), as well as traveled through (what was Eastern) Europe, the Middle East, and Turkey. I've served on the Board of Directors of ASIANetwork, with specific responsibilities for CMC-related projects and policies. This past year I've served as Chair of the AoIR ethics working committee. It has been extraordinary to see what an international and interdisciplinary group of researchers, scholars, and philosophers can discern regarding the many thorny ethical problems occasioned by Internet research. This experience has convinced me yet again of the value of interdisciplinary/ international discussion, which I take to be one of the primary benefits of AoIR. My interests are helping AoIR to continue to grow and thereby enrich the possibilities for international/interdisciplinary dialogue - dialogues which, in many cases, promise to provide needed insight and direction in our understanding of CMC technologies and their multiple uses both locally and globally. Cheers and best wishes, Charles Ess Director, Interdisciplinary Studies Center Drury University 900 N. Benton Ave. Voice: 417-873-7230 Springfield, MO 65802 USA FAX: 417-873-7435 Home page: http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html Co-chair, CATaC 2002: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/ "...to be non-violent, we must not wish for anything on this earth which the meanest and lowest of human beings cannot have." -- Gandhi