GANGTOK,: Sikkim’s Naresh Agarwal will be the recipient of the 2024 Watson Davis Award for Service, awarded by the Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T).
Naresh joins the list of 63 leaders of the field and luminaries who have received this award since 1976. He will receive the award during the 2024 ASIS&T annual meeting which will be held 25-29 October in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, a press release informs.
Naresh is a Professor and Director of the Information Science & Technology Concentration at Simmons University, Boston, USA and a past president of ASIS&T. Born and brought up in Gangtok, he is the son of Durga Devi Agarwal and Late Marulal Agarwal and 1994 school captain of Tashi Namgyal Academy.
Naresh completed his computer engineering on full scholarship at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and received his PhD from the National University of Singapore after spending six years in the industry.
For 87 years since 1937, and headquartered in USA, ASIS&T is the pre-eminent international association for thousands of researchers and practitioners from over 50 countries innovating theories and technologies and studying how people interact with information and technology. The Watson Davis award recognizes an individual ASIS&T member who has shown continuous dedicated leadership and service and made substantial and lasting contributions to ASIS&T governance, chapters, special interest groups, committees, and publications, the release mentions.
Naresh was the president of ASIS&T in 2021-2022. Since 2008, he has served the organisation in several capacities, including as Board member, conference co-chair and founder of the South Asia chapter. He was awarded the James Cretsos Leadership Award in 2012 and was recognized as a Distinguished Member in 2021 and a Lifetime Member in 2024. As president, he made it his endeavor to listen to members, advancing the Strategic Plan, getting the ‘About ASIS&T’ page translated to 28 languages, and launching a mentorship program.
His research area is information behavior and knowledge management. His first book ‘Exploring Context in Information Behavior’ was published by Morgan & Claypool in 2018. His second book was published in 2021 as 'Engineering to Ikigai’ in South Asia and 'You know the glory, not the story' internationally. He is currently co-authoring a book on Knowledge Management in Libraries, the release mentions.
He has been a keynote/invited speaker in several countries, including India, Bangladesh, China, France, Iran, Japan, Nepal, Pakistan, South Africa, UK, and US. In 2018, he started projectonenessworld.com to gather human stories through interviews.
One can learn more about Naresh at nareshagarwal.com.