Contact: James Carskadon

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State’s Merrill Warkentin is being recognized by the Association for Computing Machinery for his scientific contributions to the field of computing.

Warkentin, the James J. Rouse Endowed Professor of Information Systems in MSU’s College of Business, has been named a Distinguished Member for Outstanding Scientific Contributions to Computing by ACM. He is the first person in the state of Mississippi to be selected for the honor. An MSU faculty member for over 17 years, Warkentin’s research focuses on individual user behavior in the context of information security and privacy.

“I am proud to see Dr. Warkentin receive this well-deserved recognition for his scholarly leadership and accomplishments,” MSU College of Business Dean Sharon Oswald said. “His research in information systems has a global reach and substantial impact, as this honor from ACM shows.”

The ACM Distinguished Member program recognizes members of the international organization with at least 15 years of professional experience who have made significant accomplishments or achieved a significant impact on the computing field. According to ACM, Distinguished Members are exemplars for their peers. Warkentin is among 38 researchers honored for their scientific contributions to computing in 2018. ACM is also honoring others for outstanding educational and engineering contributions to computing.

“By honoring these individuals, we highlight the professional achievements behind the technologies that have transformed both our daily lives and society in general,” President Cherri M. Pancake said in announcing this year’s honors. “Each Distinguished Member has also demonstrated a commitment to being part of the professional community through his or her longstanding membership in ACM. These computing leaders really epitomize ACM’s mission of ‘advancing computing as a science and a profession.’”

Warkentin is the author or editor of seven books and has authored or co-authored over 300 published manuscripts. He has served in editorial roles for the leading journals in his field, including MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and Journal of the Association for Information Systems. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, National Security Agency, and IBM, among others.

“I am honored to receive this recognition for the research that my co-authors and I have conducted,” Warkentin said. “It is exciting to be engaged in this work during a time when there are so many threats to the security and privacy of our information.” 

Warkentin’s research investigates factors that promote increased employee compliance with information security policies, causes of inappropriate cybersecurity behaviors, improved cybersecurity training protocols, privacy management, social media addiction and envy, and related issues.  For more details, visit his website at www.MISProfessor.us.

Warkentin received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from the University of Nebraska, as well as a doctorate in management information systems. A 2017 analysis of Google Scholar data listed Warkentin among the top 150 management information systems scholars of all time. His publications were ranked 20th in the world for the most journal publications in the top six IS journals between 2015 and 2017.

The ACM is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources, and address challenges within the field of computing. For more on ACM’s 2018 Distinguished Member recognitions, visit https://www.acm.org/media-center/2018/november/distinguished-members-2018.

Founded in 1915, MSU’s nationally accredited College of Business is the oldest in Mississippi and among the oldest in the Southeastern Conference. For more, visit www.business.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.