Madeleine Wolske (MSLIS ’16) took an unconventional path from her master’s in LIS to her current role as the director of the Illinois Small Business Development Center at the Champaign County Economic Development Corporation. She credits the iSchool for giving her experience in market research, data storytelling, and community informatics that provided the foundation she has built her career upon.

President Donald Trump has threatened to levy higher tariffs on more than two dozen countries and on various products in the past few months. China in particular has been a target of the administration’s trade wars, aimed at preventing its dominance in areas such as artificial intelligence, although the U.S. government announced recently that it would sell advanced semiconductors used in AI to China. Assistant Professor Meicen Sun spoke with News Bureau arts and humanities editor Jodi Heckel about the effects of trade restrictions.

PhD student Muhammad Hassan has been selected as an IAPP Westin Scholar Award honoree. The annual awards were created by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) to support students who are identified as future leaders in the field of privacy and data protection. 

PhD candidate Michelle Bak successfully defended her dissertation, "Promoting a Healthy and Comprehensive Diet through Theory-Driven Large Language Models-based Agents," on July 14.

The iSchool is pleased to announce the appointment of two specialized faculty members. Yildiz Esener and Nitin Verma will join the School as teaching assistant professors in August 2025.

iSchool faculty, staff, and students will present their research at DH2025, the annual conference of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO), which will take place on July 14–18 in Lisbon, Portugal. The digital humanities (DH) conference is the largest event of the international DH community and unites scholars from across the globe. 

iSchool Alumni Association (ISAA) is pleased to announce the recipients of its annual awards, which were presented at an alumni reception during the 2025 ALA Annual Conference and Exhibition.

Corissa Clark joined the iSchool last month as an office administrator for Academic Affairs. In her new position, she will work closely with faculty, staff, and university administration to ensure accurate scheduling and efficient course management for the iSchool's graduate programs.

PhD candidate Andrew Zalot successfully defended his dissertation, "'Tweet of the Town:' Synthesizing Local and Social Media Discourse on Book Bans," on July 3.

The Library of Congress announced the appointment of 37 undergraduate, graduate students, and recent graduates to its Junior Fellows Program, including seven students from the iSchool.