Ramon is pursuing a Ph.D. through the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany. Currently, he is doing research about how different social and organizational structures affect and are affected by the way technology is selected, designed, and used in government.

I started work at the CTG in January 2002 mainly because of my research interests. My academic advisor suggested that if I wanted to study the use of information technology in government, then CTG was the place to be. I have had the opportunity to work on several projects at CTG and have realized that this is actually the best place to be for a student interested in government IT research.

I held many positions within my home country of Mexico before coming to the University at Albany. Initially I went to work for the government of the State of Mexico, where I worked in IT until I was promoted to administrative assistant for a high-ranking political appointee. This position helped me to make one of the most important decisions of my life. That's when I decided to focus more on the academic side of politics instead of the practitioner side. In 1999, I became an Assistant Professor at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE), the top-ranked Masters in Public Administration and Policy program in the country. At CIDE, I conducted a study on the budgeting processes in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela. This research explored an organizational approach to understand the promises and limitation of a technique called performance-oriented budgeting.

I feel that publishing is one of the main measures of my successes or accomplishments in the academic field. Because of this, CTG is a good place for me to be. Being at CTG has given me the chance to write several academic papers. Currently I am working on a project looking at how people used technology in government to respond to the events of September 11, 2001. I am part of a research team writing an article that covers one aspect of this research. Another major study that I am working on looks into information usage in the Criminal Justice field.

Because my future plans include teaching and researching at the university level, performing research at CTG has allowed me to gain much knowledge in regards to the technological and informational aspects of government. In addition to this, CTG has given me the opportunity to research the field of digital government from a social science approach. This research has provided me with a solid base from which to grow and continue research in the future.

A more technologically based government allows citizens greater access to their government. This cannot blind people to the traditional form of government though. When we see information technologies as the only aspect of government we are only seeing one side of the coin. One major problem with government going totally digital, is that not everybody has access to the latest technology, or they do not have the education to participate in it. I see the need for the public interaction in the creation of digital government. Similar to any other public policy in a modern democracy, we should ask the people what they want and whether they want or not electronic government.

I collect miniature dragons; in fact I have more than 200 of them.