About the Author

Catherine Ricardo is a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at Iona University in New Rochelle, NY. She received a B.A. from the College of Mount Saint Vincent, an M.A. from Fordham University, and an M. Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. She served as departmental chairperson and as coordinator of graduate programs in computing at Iona. She has taught a variety of courses, but she has concentrated on courses in database systems, at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Her other interests include computing education, educational assessment, and computing curriculum development. She has written textbooks, book chapters, and numerous articles, and has made presentations at many conferences in the field. Susan D. Urban received the Ph.D. degree in computer science in 1987 from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She received the B.S. degree in computer science in 1976 and the M.S. degree in computer science in 1980, also from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. She is currentlyan emeritus professor in the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decisions Systems Engineering at Arizona State University. She has also held faculty positions at the University of Miami and at Texas Tech University. She has taught at the undergraduate and graduate level for over 28 years, with a focus on database design, data consistency, active rule processing, distributed databases, the use of databases in engineering design, and the development of innovative teaching concepts for database instruction. She has over 120 refereed publications and book chapters on her research and teaching activities.