Who are iScholars?

Ph.D. Student Explores Diverse Fields of Knowledge

Raed—the Arabic word for pioneer or explorer—is the perfect emblem for Syracuse University's School of Information Studies Ph.D. candidate Raed M. Sharif, a pioneer of the international movement for open access to information, and an explorer of diverse fields of knowledge. Sharif, who joined the iSchool in 2004 and expects to finish his Ph.D. by the end of 2009, immerses himself in this open access movement in order to “empower people and help them make more informed decisions about different dimensions of their lives, such as health, education, investment, employment, traveling, etc., which will consequently improve their standard of living and socioeconomic development.”

Sharif’s interest in information, technology, and community development began in the first 17 years of his life, during which he lived in Jabalya refugee camp in Palestine’s Gaza Strip. He lived among 120,000 people in an area less than four square miles, witnessing poverty and inadequate access to basic resources, health services, and education. The experience, he says, made him determined to use knowledge and education as the main tools for improving the lives of the people of Palestine and other strife-ridden countries.
His dissertation focuses on the social and economic costs and benefits of open access to and re-use of Public Sector Information (PSI)—information generated by/for governments using public funds. His research focuses on the United States, one of the few countries that make most PSI openly available to the public. “PSI is a very important resource,” Sharif says, “and making it openly available and easily accessible or restricting access to it can greatly impact the socioeconomic development of societies.” He expects the lessons learned from studying the U.S. case will help him better study and understand the PSI status in the less economically developed countries.
In addition to his academic research, Sharif is involved in several international organizations and activities that contribute to the open access movement. In 2005, he worked as a fellow with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and he credits his mentor there, Paul Uhlir, with exposing him to many global initiatives that “are trying to overcome some of the institutional, socioeconomic, technical, legal, and policy obstacles to access to information and knowledge.” Since then, he has worked on almost a dozen projects and activities and traveled to more than 15 countries to promote open access values and practices. He was recently elected chair of the UN-GAID Community of Expertise on Enhancing Access to and Application of Scientific Data in Developing Countries (e-SDDC) Young Scientists Forum, and is on the steering committee of the InterAcademy Panel on International Issues—a consortium of 96 national science academies around the world—Program on Digital Knowledge Resources and Infrastructure in Developing Countries. Sharif also serves on the Committee on Data in Science and Technology (CODATA) Young Scientists Committee, and planned the 21st CODATA International Conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, in October.