Chan receives Fulbright grant

Anita Say Chan
Anita Say Chan, Associate Professor

Anita Say Chan, associate professor in the iSchool and the Department of Media and Cinema Studies, has been awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant to spend three weeks at Javeriana University in Bogota, Colombia. During her visit, which will take place in May 2020, Chan will lecture on feminist data methods and give a workshop on community data.

"I'm thrilled to be able to share the innovative interdisciplinary work in civic and community data methods we are cultivating at the Community Data Clinic at Illinois and to work with the talented faculty, students, and researchers in the Communication, Languages, and Information doctoral program at Javeriana," she said.

Chan noted her upcoming work in Colombia is reflective of the iSchool's commitment to building global research networks for collaboration and exchange around varied social justice projects.

"I am also excited to be able to use the time to deepen my research on and with feminist data justice networks addressing feminicide and online gender-based harassment in the region," Chan said. "Their research practices and outreach methods to extend the visibility of their data resources have undoubtedly been some of the most impactful cases that scholars have seen emerge in any global context."

Chan's research and teaching interests include globalization and digital cultures, innovation networks and the "periphery," science and technology studies global contexts, and feminist and decolonial approaches to technology. Her book, Networking Peripheries: Technological Futures and the Myth of Digital Universalism (MIT Press, 2014), addresses the competing imaginaries of global connection and information technologies in network-age Peru.

Chan is a 2019-2020 Fiddler Innovation Faculty Fellow at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and a 2019-2020 Faculty Fellow at the Data & Society Research Institute in New York City. At Illinois, she directs the interdisciplinary Technocultures Lab in Department of Media and Cinema Studies and is a faculty affiliate at the Illinois Informatics Institute, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Center for Global Studies, Department of Anthropology, and Department of Asian American Studies. Chan received her PhD from MIT in the history and anthropology of science and technology studies.

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

iSchool alumni and student named 2025 Movers & Shakers

Two iSchool alumni and an MSLIS student are included in Library Journal's 2025 class of Movers & Shakers, an annual list that recognizes 50 professionals who are moving the library field forward as a profession. Leah Gregory (MSLIS '04) was honored in the Advocates category, Billy Tringali (MSLIS '19) was honored in the Innovators category, and University Library Assistant Professor and Digital Humanities Librarian Mary Ton (current MSLIS student) was honored in the Educators category.

Spectrum Scholar Spotlight: Dalia Ortiz Pon

Twelve iSchool master's students were named 2024–2025 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. This "Spectrum Scholar Spotlight" series highlights the School's scholars. MSLIS student Dalia Ortiz Pon earned her bachelor's degree in Latina/Latino studies from San Francisco State University. 

Dalia Ortiz Pon

Debnath datafies "The Bulletin"

MSIM student Tan Debnath, whose interests span data mining, statistical modeling, text mining, and digital humanities, joined the Center for Children's books as a research assistant. He was tasked with building curation processes that would datafy seventy-five years' worth of archival issues of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, one of the nation's leading children's book review journals.

Tan Debnath stands casually with his hands in his pockets and smiles broadly at the camera. It's a sunny day

iSchool undergraduates selected as 2025 Community-Academic Scholars

The Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute (IHSI) has selected BSIS student Dhanvi Puttur and BSIS+DS student Lara Terpetschnig as 2025 Community-Academic Scholars. Representing nineteen majors and nine minors in eight colleges and schools at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and two additional universities, the eighteen scholars in this cohort encompass diverse fields of study, from community health to graphic design to statistics. 

BSIS+DS student Lara Terpetschnig and BSIS student Dhanvi Puttur