Doctoral candidate Kirstin Phelps will participate in ISIC 2018: The Information Behaviour Conference, which will be held October 9-11 in Krakow, Poland. The conference is a platform for a broad and multidisciplinary community of researchers to present and discuss how people engage with information in a myriad of contexts.
As part of the pre-conference doctoral workshop, Phelps will present her research, "Collective Leadership and Information Behavior: A Case-Based Inquiry into Community Digital Literacy Initiatives," which examines the collective leadership roles and associated information behaviors within a community-based group implementing digital literacy initiatives. Her research contributes a leadership lens to explore information sharing and transfer within community settings, in order to inform strategies for successful interorganizational collaboration and support effective training and education for information professionals.
Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, Phelps was an assistant director at the Illinois Leadership Center at the University of Illinois. In this role, she taught undergraduate courses on leadership, developed formal training programs for leadership skill development, and facilitated student, faculty, and staff workshops on leadership competencies. In 2016, she received a Philanthropic Educational Organization (PEO) Scholar Award to support her doctoral studies. Phelps earned her bachelor's degree in agricultural communication and advertising and her master’s degree in agricultural education, both from Illinois.