School of Information Sciences

Noble honored with Faculty Scholar Award

[image1-right]GSLIS affiliated faculty member Safiya U. Noble (MS ’09, PhD ’12) has been honored with the 2014 Faculty Scholar Award by the University of Illinois Women’s Resources Center (WRC). This award recognizes scholarship that contributes to the advancement of feminism, promotes justice and equity, and supports anti-oppression education.

Noble was honored for her work to reveal the role of technology as a reflection and reinforcement of cultural norms and value systems. “Her community work and scholarship on the representations of people of color—and oppression, power, and privilege more broadly—contribute to critical knowledge on the production of transnational black labor and contemporary barriers in the way of racial and social justice,” said Rachel Storm, WRC assistant director, who introduced Noble at the Women’s Awards Celebration on May 1.

Noble is an assistant professor of media and cinema studies and faculty affiliate to GSLIS, the Institute for Communications Research, and the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on digital media platform design and social informatics, representation of people of color and women in commercial search and social media systems, and information policy. Her work also includes STEM barriers for African American women and girls.

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Vaez Afshar selected as 2026 APT Student Scholar

The Association for Preservation Technology (APT) International has named Informatics PhD student Sepehr Vaez Afshar as a 2026 Student Scholar. Established in 1985, the APT Student Scholarship annually recognizes ten students worldwide whose work advances preservation technology through innovative and impactful approaches.

Sepehr Vaez Afshar

Stier selected for I Love My Librarian Award

Adjunct Lecturer Zachary Stier has been selected for a 2026 I Love My Librarian Award. Honorees were recognized for their outstanding public service accomplishments. 

Zachary Stier

Nguyen receives Critical Language Scholarship

MSLIS student Christine Nguyen has been awarded a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) to study Japanese this summer. She is one of four University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students who received full scholarships to spend 8-10 weeks abroad and study one of 14 critical languages. The program is part of an initiative to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages and cultural skills to enable them to contribute to U.S. economic competitiveness and national security.

Christine Thuy Minh Nguyen

iSchool researchers to present at CHI 2026

iSchool faculty and students will present their research at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2026), which will be held from April 13–17 in Barcelona, Spain. The conference, considered the most prestigious in the field of Human-Computer Interaction, attracts researchers and practitioners from around the globe.

Wang and Snap Research partner on "Profile Agent"

Imagine your favorite apps had a "digital twin" of your personality that actually grew up with you. Right now, most AI systems create a static snapshot of your interests. For example, a personal shopper who keeps recommending video games just because you bought one three years ago, even though you've long since moved on to hiking and cooking. To bridge this gap, Professor Dong Wang's team at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is partnering with Snap Research to build a "Profile Agent."

Dong Wang

School of Information Sciences

501 E. Daniel St.

MC-493

Champaign, IL

61820-6211

Voice: (217) 333-3280

Email: ischool@illinois.edu

Back to top