PhD student Jamillah R. Gabriel has received support from the University of Illinois and Drexel University to attend summer programs in the areas of critical theory and data science.
The Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at Illinois awarded Gabriel a Nicholson Graduate Fellowship, which will pay for her attendance at this year's Summer Institute at Cornell University's School for Criticism and Theory. The six-week institute provides an opportunity for advanced training in critical theory and for making connections with an international cohort of peers and world-class scholars.
Drexel's College of Computing and Informatics selected Gabriel as a LEADS-4-NDP 2018-2019 Fellow. LEADS-4-NDP, the LIS Education and Data Science for the National Digital Platform program, is part of the Institute of Library and Museum Services (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program. As a Fellow, Gabriel will attend a data science boot camp at Drexel in early June and spend ten weeks in an immersive data science internship, working with the University of Maryland, which is one of the National Digital Platform (NDP) partners.
Gabriel's research interests focus on the information behaviors of African Americans and the effectiveness of cultural heritage institutions (libraries, archives, museums) at meeting the needs of African American communities. She is also interested in information literacy, community informatics, social justice, community engagement, and diversity and inclusion. Her professional experience includes 17 years as a librarian and library paraprofessional in public and academic libraries, most recently as Black cultural center librarian and metadata specialist at Purdue University. She earned her MLIS from San Jose State University and also holds an MA in museum studies from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.