Doctoral candidate Smit Desai successfully defended his dissertation, "Designing Metaphor-fluid Voice User Interfaces," on June 10.

Last month, Michael Ferrer showed his appreciation for one of his MSIM instructors in a unique way—by inviting him for an insider’s look at his work as a reservist in the Illinois Army National Guard. For the ILARNG BOSS Lift, which took place on June 18 at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, Ferrer selected Michael Wonderlich, iSchool adjunct lecturer and senior associate director of business intelligence and enterprise architecture for Administrative Information Technology Services (AITS) at the University of Illinois.

A toolkit for public librarians can help them use data to communicate the value of their services and justify their funding needs. The Data Storytelling for Librarians Toolkit helps librarians present data in story form using narrative strategies. It was developed by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign information sciences professors.

Associate Professor Anita Say Chan will deliver the keynote at the 15th annual conference of the SHOT (Society for the History of Technology) Special Interest Group for Computing, Information, and Society (SIGCIS), which will be held on July 14 in Viña del Mar, Chile. SIGCIS is the leading international group for historians with an interest in the history of information technology and its applications. The theme for SIGCIS 2024 is "System Update: Patches, Tactics, Responses."

Adjunct Lecturer Kristen Mattson has received the 2024 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Making It Happen Award. The award honors educators and leaders who demonstrate outstanding commitment, leadership, courage, and persistence in improving digital learning opportunities for students.

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has announced the publication of the Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (CREC) Recommended Practice (NISO RP-45-2024), which is the product of a working group made up of cross-industry stakeholders, including Associate Professor Jodi Schneider. 

Maria Bonn, associate professor and director of the MSLIS and CAS programs, has been elected president-elect of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T). She will begin her one-year term immediately following the ASIS&T Annual Meeting, which will be held from October 25-29 in Calgary, Canada, and will assume the presidency in fall 2025.

Doctoral candidate Lanyu Shang successfully defended her dissertation, "A Human-Centric Artificial Intelligence Approach Towards Equality, Well-Being, and Responsibility in Sustainable Communities," on June 19.

Gillian Gabriel joined the iSchool on June 3 as an office administrator - course scheduler. In this position, she will work with the Academic Affairs team to design the schedule and input it into Banner, work with Catalog Management and Section Scheduling (CMSS) to arrange classroom space, manage the final exam schedule, and coordinate with the bookstore on textbook orders.

Leep (MSLIS online) student Morgan Rondinelli shares her experience as a mentally ill library professional in the article, "What's Missing in Conversations about Libraries and Mental Illness," which was recently published in the open access, peer-reviewed journal In the Library with the Lead Pipe.