The iSchool is pleased to announce that Visiting Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek will transition to the role of assistant professor, effective August 16.
Ocepek's research and teaching interests include everyday information behavior, cultural theory, critical theory, food studies, and research methods. She has co-authored two books, Food in the Internet Age and Formal and Informal Approaches to Food Policy. Ocepek received the Elfreda A. Chatman Research Award from the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Special Interest Group (SIG), Information Needs Seeking and Use (USE), for her research proposal, "An Exploration of Everyday Information Behavior." For the research project, she will explore information behaviors across contexts by spending a week observing different people to see how they use information in different aspects of their life.
At the iSchool, Ocepek teaches Information Organization and Access (IS 501), Libraries, Information, and Society (IS 502), Use and Users of Information (IS 503), and Copyright for Information Professionals (IS 590CI), which she created with Sara Benson, adjunct assistant professor and copyright librarian at the University Library.
"Sara and I created Copyright for Information Professionals to provide iSchool students with a nuanced understanding of how copyright affects a variety of information professions. The course is designed to make legal concepts approachable and allow information professionals to feel empowered to work with copyright," Ocepek said.
Ocepek holds a BA in sociology and political science from Pepperdine University and a PhD in information science from the University of Texas at Austin.