PETER R. LEAVITT is a consultant and former chairman and chief executive officer of Weather Services Corp., where he has developed online real-time meteorological databases for national and international agricultural and commodity services. He has a BS in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Leavitt served previously on two other NRC committees, as well as on several government advisory committees addressing data use and research issues in meteorology.

LEE E. LIMBIRD is associate vice chancellor for research at Vanderbilt University and chair of the Department of Pharmacology. Her responsibilities as associate vice-chancellor include development of new intra- and interinstitutional initiatives for research, with a focus on research development in genetics and genomics; neuroscience; and structural biology, broadly defined to include biophysics and bioengineering. She is also responsible for the Office of Grants Management and Technology Transfer. Dr. Limbird received a BA in chemistry from the College of Wooster and a PhD in biochemistry from the University of North Carolina. Her area of research has been in the molecular pathways of signal transduction by G Protein-coupled receptors using biochemical, cellular, and genetic strategies, including genetically modified mice.

PHILIP LOFTUS is vice president and director of Worldwide Information Services Architecture and Technology for Glaxo Wellcome, where he is responsible for both the information services infrastructure and global information management. From 1996 to 1998, he served as vice president and director of Worldwide R&D Information Systems and was responsible for developing and implementing a global information system strategy for R&D. Prior to that, he was executive director for Research Information Systems at Merck Research Laboratories, and from 1976 to 1993, he was a vice president for R&D Information Systems and a computational scientist at ICI. Dr. Loftus has a BSc in chemistry and a PhD in conformational isomerism from the University of Liverpool, and he was a Fullbright Hayes Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology in 1974-1975. He holds a postgraduate certificate in education from the University of Liverpool. He has published extensively in the area of information technology applications for pharmaceutical research.

HARLAN J. ONSRUD is professor in the Department of Spatial Information Science and Engineering at the University of Maine and a research scientist with the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA). He received BS and MS degrees in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin and a JD from the University of Wisconsin Law School. His research focuses on (1) analysis of legal and institutional issues affecting the creation and use of digital databases and the sharing of geographic information, (2) assessing utilization of GIS and the social impacts of the technology, and (3) developing and assessing strategies for supporting the diffusion of geographic information innovations. Mr. Onsrud has co-led major multiyear NCGIA research initiatives on the use and value of geographic information, institutions sharing geographic information, and law, information policy, and spatial databases. Mr. Onsrud is a licensed engineer, lawyer, and land surveyor.

HARVEY S. PERLMAN is a professor of law and former dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law. He is an expert in trademark law and unfair competition law. In addition to writing many articles in these areas, Mr. Perlman has co-authored Legal Regulation of the