School welcomes specialized faculty

Dave Mussulman
David Mussulman, Lecturer
Craig Willis
Craig Willis, Teaching Assistant Professor
Yang Zhang
Yang Zhang, Teaching Assistant Professor

The iSchool is pleased to announce the appointment of three specialized faculty members. Craig Willis and Yang Zhang will join the School as teaching assistant professors, and Dave Mussulman will join the School as a lecturer.

Mussulman is currently an instructional technology facilitator in the Grainger College of Engineering, where he works as a consultant to help faculty explore and adopt IT solutions for their teaching and learning. He has served as an adjunct professor for the iSchool, teaching Introduction to Technology in LIS (IS 590) and Race, Gender, and Information Technology (IS 308). Mussulman also has experience as a software carpentry workshop instructor with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and University of Illinois Research Park. He earned his BS in computer science and MSLIS from Illinois.

Willis has worked as a research programmer for the iSchool's Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship (CIRSS) and research programmer/senior research programmer for the NCSA. His research interests include data management and curation, computational reproducibility and transparency, scientific metadata, and information storage and retrieval. Willis will be collaborating with Professor Allen Renear on updating the Foundations of Data Curation (CS 598) course that will be delivered via Coursera for students enrolled in the University's online Master of Computer Science in Data Science (MCS-DS) program. He holds a BA in geography from the University of Colorado Boulder, MS in library science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and PhD from the iSchool at Illinois.

Zhang has served as a postdoctoral research associate in the iSchool for the past year. In spring 2023, he taught Database Design and Prototyping (IS 455). His research focuses on human-centered artificial intelligence and social sensing. He holds a BE in software engineering from Wuhan University, MS in data science from Indiana University Bloomington, and PhD in computer science and engineering from the University of Notre Dame. 

Tags:
Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Tibebu joins the School

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Haileleol Tibebu joined the faculty as a teaching assistant professor on January 1, 2025. His research and teaching interests include responsible AI, AI policy and governance, algorithmic fairness, and the intersection of technology and society.

Haileleol Tibebu

Rhinesmith joins the faculty

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Colin Rhinesmith joined the faculty as a visiting associate professor on January 1, 2025. His position will become permanent following approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. He previously served as founder and director of the Digital Equity Research Center at the Metropolitan New York Library Council.

Colin Rhinesmith

SafeRBot to assist community, police in crime reporting

Across the nation, 911 dispatch centers are facing a worker shortage. Unfortunately, this understaffing, plus the nature of the job itself, leads to dispatchers who are often overworked and stressed. Meanwhile, when community members need to report a crime, their options are to contact 911 for an emergency or, in a non-emergency situation, call a non-emergency number or fill out an online form. A new chatbot, SafeRBot, designed and developed by Associate Professor Yun Huang, Informatics PhD student Yiren Liu, and BSIS student Tony An seeks to improve the reporting process for non-emergency situations for both community members and dispatch centers.

Yun Huang

Hoiem receives Schiller Prize for “Education of Things”

Associate Professor Elizabeth Hoiem has won the 2025 Justin G. Schiller Prize from The Bibliographical Society of America for her book, The Education of Things: Mechanical Literacy in British Children's Literature, 1762-1860 (University of Massachusetts Press). The prize, which recognizes the best bibliographical work on pre-1951 children's literature, includes a cash award of $3,000 and a year's membership in the Society. 

Elizabeth Hoiem

Chan authors new book connecting eugenics and Big Tech

Associate Professor Anita Say Chan has authored a new book that identifies how the eugenics movement foreshadows the predatory data tactics used in today's tech industry. Her book, Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future, was released this month by the University of California Press and featured in the news outlets San Francisco Chronicle and Mother Jones.

Anita Say Chan