Dr. Miriam Masullo is a Research Staff Member at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, the IBM Yorktown Heights Research Laboratory. She came to IBM Research in 1985, with a long-held personal interest in education and 16 years of experience in both systems analysis and network engineering from the telecommunications industry.

Dr. Masullo received her bachelor's degree from The City College of New York, majoring in Architecture and English Literature, a Master of Science from the City College School of Engineering, a Master of Philosophy from the City University of New York, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from The City University of New York for her interdisciplinary thesis with the Departments of Computer Science and Educational Psychology.

At IBM Research Dr. Masullo has made significant contributions to the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems, System Management, Policy Management, and Object Oriented Systems. Her education research activities at Watson include the design of a systems infrastructure for the management and coordination of curriculum in K-12 education; and, other related research in the fields of networked multimedia, digital libraries, digital broadcast satellite and digital data broadcast systems and pilot projects for education. She has also worked on the application of technology for enhancing special education, particularly reading disabilities and dyslexia; and, for informal science education in museums and science centers. Her work in educational technology research has been focused on worldwide equity of access to education.

As part of these activities Dr. Masullo worked for several years with the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Project 2061, a major science, mathematics and technology education reform effort of national scope. To the 2061 Framework she contributed concepts based on the definition of an education infrastructure first proposed in her doctoral dissertation, An Exploratory Educational Environment for Computer Supported Education (EEE). EEE first defined a formal systems approach to coordinate and organize educational tools, and to characterize learners and materials in order to be able to match them more precisely, as a needed technology-based foundation for systemic education reform.

Dr. Masullo was the project director for EduPort, designed as a possible model for the education component of any given National Information Infrastructure (NII). This project was implemented as a demonstration in Lincoln, Nebraska, and in Singapore, and it has attracted national and international attention. EduPort was also demonstrated to the US Senate by Senator Kerrey (D-Nebraska) during a hearing on telecommunications legislation, becoming possibly the first statement on the congressional record in behalf of equity technology access for our schools.

EduPort was the first (1993) real time broadband, video-on-demand, networked multimedia and digital library pilot project to reach a school, before the Internet and the Web arrived in the public school system. The project also introduced and demonstrated the concepts of metadata selection of content and digital library construction for K-12 education. For those reasons the Council on Competitiveness selected the EduPort demonstration for the NII conference entitled "Breaking the Barriers of the National Information Infrastructure" in 1994, as an example of NII related projects. The project received the same kind of recognition many times, internationally.

In 1994, Dr. Masullo organized and conducted the first workshop on the Role of Digital Libraries for K-12 Education, in collaboration with NASA GSFC and NCREL, and has since contributed numerous international papers and lectures to understanding of that topic. She has since worked all over the world, with decision makers and government leaders, to influence the development of infrastructure and digital libraries for K-12 education. Her work has influenced the direction of education infrastructure in Latin America, Asia, South Africa, the Middle East, and the US. A paper she co-authored, entitled "A Universal and Global Education Infrastructure" is part of the "UNESCO: 50 Years in Education" collection of reports, that was distributed to every government in the world. She has worked closely with UNESCO to help formulate the building of such infrastructure. As part of those efforts the UNESCO Education Web Site now resides at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Dr. Masullo was named New York City's Business Educator of the Year in 1997 by the City College of New York during its 150th anniversary celebration, and "A Woman Who Makes a Difference" in 1998 by Black Engineer and Hispanic Engineer Magazines. She was honored with the Townsend Harris Medal in October of 2000, for "distinguished contributions to society" in her chosen field of work. She has served in the New York State Curriculum and Assessment Committee for Math, Science and Technology, and in the New York State Math Standards and Assessment Committee, an appointment of the New York State Regents. She has represented IBM Research at the National Science Education Standards and at several task forces on education and digital libraries sponsored by the National Research Council. From 1998 through 2000, Dr. Masullo served as Director of Educational Technology at the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering - NACME (see http://www.nacme.org/) on faculty loan from IBM. At NACME she worked on various educational projects, including the of use of data mining technologies in alternative assessment for talent discovery.

Dr. Masullo is a member of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board of the National Academy of Sciences, a member of the New York Academy of Science, a member of the Experts Group on Education and Technology of the National Council on Competitiveness, a member of the Advisory Board of the City College School of Engineering, and a member of the Advisory Board of the National Peace Garden (see http://www.celebratepeace.org/) and also the chair of its Education and Technology Committee.

She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport Connecticut, and of the Board of Directors of Mount Saint Michael Academy in New York City, New York. She is cited in Who'sWho in America Millennium, Who'sWho in American Women in Science and the International Who'sWho of Distance Learning.