Informatics PhD student Olivia Wang won the Grand Prize at the 2025 Research Live! competition, which was held on April 8 in the Campus Instructional Facility Atrium. At the event, which is hosted by the Graduate College, thirteen finalists presented their graduate research in three minutes or less to a general audience. Wang received $500 as the Grand Prize winner.

The iSchool at Illinois has retained its top spot in U.S. News & World Report's 2025 ranking of graduate schools offering a master's degree in library and information studies. The iSchool has held the number one ranking for nearly three decades.

Twelve iSchool master's students were named 2024–2025 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. This "Spectrum Scholar Spotlight" series highlights the School's scholars. MSLIS Katherine Mendoza Gonzalez earned her BA in history from Aurora University in Aurora, Illinois.

Doctoral candidate Kyrie Zhixuan Zhou successfully defended his dissertation, "A Pragmatic and Human-centered Approach to Promoting Software Accessibility: Design, Education, Governance," on April 3.

The School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is pleased to announce the publication of Library Trends 73 (1–2). Inspired by the contributions of Marcia Bates, this issue, "Design and the Philosophy of Information," highlights the cultural, social, and philosophical dimensions of information design. Ken Herold served as guest editor. 

Professor Emily Knox has been appointed to serve as interim dean of the School of Information Sciences, pending approval by the Board of Trustees. Until officially approved, her title will be interim dean designate. The appointment will begin April 1, 2025.

During her time as an active-duty Naval Officer, Anna Hartman realized that she had a passion for helping others and building community. That passion, combined with a lifelong love of reading, led her to pursue an MSLIS degree at the University of Illinois. Hartman is receiving support for her studies through the Balz Endowment Fund, which was established by Nancy (BA LAS '70, MSLIS '72) and Dan (BS Media '68, MS Media '72) Balz to help make education more affordable for returning students.

Fifty-six iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Fall 2024 and Winter 2024-2025. The rankings are released every semester, and results are based on the ratings from the Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) questionnaire forms maintained by Measurement and Evaluation in the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. 

Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek and Assistant Professor Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo have co-edited a new book, Governing Misinformation in Everyday Knowledge Commons, which was recently published by Cambridge University Press. An open access edition of the book is available, thanks to support from the Governing Knowledge Commons Research Coordination Network (NSF 2017495). The new book explores the socio-technical realities of misinformation in a variety of online and offline everyday environments. 

Outside of her work as senior software engineer, Wendy Edwards (MSLIS '09) is active in the areas of security and data science through her involvement in Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS); SANS Institute's Women's Cyber Academy; and NASA's Datanauts program and Space Apps Challenge hackathon. Edwards was a two-time champion in the Target Cyber Defense Challenge, earning scholarships to attend the WiCyS annual conference. In addition to her MSLIS, she holds an MS in computer science from the University of Illinois Springfield.