Recent graduate Wendy Hoi Yan Wong (MS '18) has been awarded a Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Digital Scholarship Postdoctoral Fellowship to work at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). The fellowship program offers scholars the chance to develop new research models, collaborate with information specialists, and explore new career opportunities. In addition to her MS/LIS degree from Illinois, Wong holds a PhD in music from CUHK.
Wong's interest in academic libraries developed while working on the Rulan Chao Pian papers as a research associate in special collections at the CUHK Library. She had previously worked as a teaching assistant and adjunct lecturer for CUHK's Department of Music. At Illinois, she worked as a graduate assistant for the HathiTrust Research Center and the Music and Performing Arts Library.
"My research areas include Western music of the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries, with a focus on music by Chinese composers—namely Chen Yi, the Lorena Searcy Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished Professor of Composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Luo Zhongrong, a Beijing-based composer, among others. One of my published articles discusses the influence of Béla Bartók on Chinese composers," Wong said.
At the iSchool, she explored the relationship between genres and musical elements, such as time signature and key. She also examined the characteristics that influence the stylometry of some classical music composers. On a different note, Wong joined Professor Ted Underwood's research project, which explored gender in fiction and biographies.
As the CLIR Digital Scholarship Postdoctoral Fellow at CUHK Library, she will be a member of its Research Support and Digital Initiatives Team.
"I will assist in developing the digital scholarship research environment on campus by offering workshops on digital tools and giving advice to faculty and students as needed," Wong explained. "Since the Library has a strong special collection on Hong Kong literature and Chinese music, I will be involved in collaborating with faculty on digital humanities projects using these collections."
Over the next two years, she will share her work at CUHK with other postdoctoral fellows and also learn from their experiences. She will meet her peers later this month at an introductory seminar for 2018 postdoctoral fellows at Bryn Mawr College.