Notable Experiences
Honors and Awards

Notable Experiences

  • Conference Co-Chair (with May Thorseth, Johnny Soraker, NTNU) - European Computers and Philosophy Conference '06. NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. June 22-24, 2006.

  • Conference Co-Chair (with Fay Sudweeks Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication (CATaC)'06. Tartu, Estonia. 27. June - 1. July, 2006.

  • Conference Co-Chair (with Fay Sudweeks, Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication (CATaC)'04. Karlstad, Sweden. June 28-July 1, 2004.

  • Being In Place Out of Place.../ Being Out of Place In Place: CMC, Globalization, and Emerging Hybridities as New Cosmopolitanisms?”  “Technology in a Multicultural and Global Society,” sponsored by the Programme for Applied Ethics and the Globalisation Project, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. Oct. 9, 2003.

  • Making Common Ground: Methodological and Ethical Challenges in Internet Research - Nordic Interdisciplinary Workshop at NTNU, Trondheim, 1-2 June 2002

    • Graduate Course, Internet Research Ethics, with Dag Elgesem (University of Bergen) and Chris Mann (Cambridge University), Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. June 3-6, 2002

  • Three Lectures on the Internet: Cultural Diversity, Embodiment and Ethics. Sponsored by the Department of Flim and Media Studies, University of Copenhagen, Department of Digital Aesthetics and Communication, IT University, and the Master of Computer-mediated Communication Programme, Roskilde University. May 27-29, 2002

  • Information Technologies and the Universities in Asia, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, April 3-5, 2002. (Sponsored in part by a grant from the Royal Golden Jubilee Program.)

  • Chair, Ethics Working Committee, Association of Internet Researchers, 2000-2005

  • Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, American Association for the Advancement of Science (Washington, DC).

  • (with Lorna Heaton, Universite de Montreal, and Fay Sudweeks, Murdoch University) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in support of CATaC'02 (Montreal, Canada)

  • (with Helen Nissenbaum, New York University) National Science Foundation (SES-0135590) Title: Research Agenda Workshop on Internet Research Ethics. In support of travel, accommodations, and conference registration fees for seven participants in a workshop on developing a research agenda for Internet research ethics (with Helen Nissenbaum). In conjunction with the Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiries conference (CEPE), Lancaster, UK, Dec 14-16, 2001

  • (with Soraj Hongladarom, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok) Thailand Research Fund, Royal Golden Jubilee Program. This grant includes travel funds for two trips to Thailand; one of these was my travel to serve as a keynote speaker for the Information Technology and the University of Asia (ITUA), April 3-5, 2002. The grant provides additional funding for a Thai Ph.D. student to spend one year at Drury University, where I will supervise his dissertation research.

  • Recipient (along with Christi Lewis, Architecture), Hewlett Foundation grant, "Professionalizing the Liberal Arts," to support a three-year collaboration between philosophy and architecture in which we will work to incorporate the best insights and practices of one another's disciplines into our own (1998-2001).

  • Recipient, 3M Vision Grant (Director, Ruth Monroe, Theatre Department) for the STEP UP Project (Students Think Evaluate Perform Understand Publish).
    This program provides philosophy students the opportunity to work with younger students in developing critical thinking and ethical analysis skills in the context of writing their own theatrical production (with the further assistance of Drury students in theatre, education, and literature). This program is distinctive in that it is aimed towards at-risk students in Drury neighborhood schools. (1998-2001)

  • Board of Directors of ASIANetwork, a consortium of liberal arts colleges "striving to strengthen the role of Asian Studies...to help prepare a new generation of undergraduates for a world in which Asian societies will play more and more prominent roles..." (1998-2000)

  • Ess received a contract/grant from the Technology Assessment Program, Switzerland, in support of an international conference, "Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication," CO-chaired with Fay Sudweeks and held at the Science Museum, London, in August, 1998.
    The second conference, CATaC 2000, cosponsored by Murdoch University, was held in Perth, Australia.

  • Research Associate, Center for the Advancement of Applied Ethics, Carnegie Mellon University, 1996-1998

  • Ess spent two years studying at the University of Zurich as part of his dissertation work.

  • Participant, Intermedia Project, a pioneering hypermedia project at Brown University (supported by grants from Annenberg/CPB and Apple Computer), 1988-1991.

  • Beta-tester, Perseus 1.0: Interactive Sources and Studies on Ancient Greece: version 2.0 is now published by Yale University Press. (He also served as a paper reviewer for submissions to the European Conference on Hypertext in 1994.)

Honors and Awards

  • Information Ethics Fellow, the Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. 2006-2007.

  • Nominated for the Drury University Faculty Liberal Learning Award, 2005

  • Nominated for the Drury University Faculty Award, Teaching 2001

  • Drury University: Faculty Award for Scholarship, 2000.

  • Received the Burlington-Northern Faculty Achievement Award for Outstanding Teaching in 1991. (He also received this award in 1985.)

  • In 1991, Ess also received one of 101 "Joe Wyatt Challenge" Awards, a nationwide award/recognition program sponsored by EDUCOM (a national organization focused on computing technologies in higher education); the award recognized his work with hypermedia technologies in education.

  • Ess has acquired significant grants for the Department and the University in the areas of academic computing and speakers' programs.