ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The work presented in this dissertation would not have been possible without the help and support of a large number of people. I would first like to thank my beautiful wife, Wendy Wolff. Her loving support helped make the long writing process sessions more bearable, and I greatly appreciate her patience and understanding in putting up with me through the stressful times. I would also like to thank my principal advisor, Dr. Imme Ebert-Uphoff, whose advice, guidance, deadlines, and constructive criticism were greatly appreciated and helped shape this work. I would also like to thank my co-advisor, Dr. Harvey Lipkin, for his insight and feedback. I also must thank my other committee members, Dr. Wayne J. Book, Dr. Tucker Balch, and Dr. Andrea Surovek, for their participation and comments that helped give me a new perspective on this work. I also am very thankful to the National Science Foundation for funding this research. I greatly enjoyed being a part of Digital Clay as well as the TI:GER (Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results) project, and would like to thank everyone that I interacted with on both projects