Spectrum Scholar Spotlight: Abigail Deweese

Abigail Deweese

Seventeen iSchool master's students have been named 2023-2024 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 Abigail Deweese earned her bachelor's degree in global studies with a concentration in peace and conflict from Principia College.

Why did you decide to pursue an LIS degree?

The various social justice elements of the information sciences field really appealed to me, especially during and after the pandemic. As an Asian American, I have experienced discrimination, but this reached a peak during the pandemic when the narrative that the COVID-19 virus originated in China created a domino effect that saw a rise in attacks against Asians worldwide. In an increasingly digital age, when we are being inundated with information from all sides with varying degrees of credibility, it becomes increasingly important to be aware of where and how we receive knowledge, as well as how we wield it. LIS encourages people to be responsible and compassionate global citizens by emphasizing the conscientious management and dispersion of information. 

Why did you choose the iSchool at Illinois?

Having only two required courses meant that I could take an array of classes that interested me and not be limited to a small selection of degree-specific courses. I also loved the flexibility the online Leep program offered for remote students—I could still receive an education from world-renowned professors without having to give up my job or fully relocate. 

What particular LIS topics interest you the most?

There are so many! I am interested in diversity and social justice, cultural informatics and heritage, computing for social good, computational science, and information access and literacy, just to name a few.

What do you do outside of class?

I currently work full-time at an academic library, but beyond work and classes, I love to read, bake and cook, knit, and be outside!

What does being a Spectrum Scholar mean to you?

To me, it means being an active agent for change. The Spectrum Scholarship program is a community of support, diversity, inclusion, and advocacy. Members are encouraged to have their voices heard as well as lift up others and ensure everyone has a seat at the table. Most importantly, Spectrum Scholars challenge the status quo and collaborate with those who have different experiences. Such rich exchanges open up worldviews and result in innovative solutions for change.

What career plans or goals do you have?

Academic librarianship seems particularly interesting to me at the moment. It would provide opportunities to share the views of the Spectrum Scholarship program with students through information literacy instruction and help them go out into the world with the tools to be responsible global citizens. 

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Faculty receive support for AI-related projects from new pilot program

Associate Professor Yun Huang, Assistant Professor Jiaqi Ma, and Assistant Professor Haohan Wang have received computing resources from the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), a two-year pilot program led by the National Science Foundation in partnership with other federal agencies and nongovernmental partners. The goal of the pilot is to support AI-related research with particular emphasis on societal challenges. Last month, awardees presented their research at the NAIRR Pilot Annual Meeting.

Winning exhibits highlight evolution of music media and Uni High magazine

MSLIS students Monica Gil, Holly Bleeden, and Harrison Price were selected as winners of this year's Graduate Student Exhibit Contest, sponsored by the University of Illinois Library. Gil and Bleeden won first place for their exhibit, "Echoes of Time: The Evolution of Music Media," and Price won second place for his exhibit, "Unique-ly Illinois: Creative Writing from High School to Higher Education." The exhibits will be on display in the Marshall Gallery in the library through the end of March.

MSLIS students Monica Gil and Holly Bleeden standing next to their exhibit, "Echoes of Time: The Evolution of Music Media," at the Main Library.

Wei receives Amazon Post Internship Fellowship

PhD student Tianxin Wei has been awarded an Amazon Post Internship Fellowship, which will provide $20,000 in unrestricted funds and $20,000 in Amazon Web Services (AWS) credits to support Wei's research with his advisor, Professor Jingrui He. For the past two summers, Wei has served as an applied scientist intern at Amazon in Palo Alto, California. He has been part of a team that is working on search query understanding within Amazon apps and services, as well as developing shopping foundation models.

Tianxin Wei

iSchool participation in iConference 2025

The following iSchool faculty and students will participate in iConference 2025, which will be held virtually from March 11-14 and physically from March 18-22 in Bloomington, Indiana. The theme of this year's conference is "Living in an AI-gorithmic world."

Youth-AI-Safety named a winning team in international hackathon

A team of researchers from the SALT (Social Computing Systems) Lab has been selected as a winner in an international hackathon hosted by the Berkeley Center for Responsible, Decentralized Intelligence. The LLM Agents MOOC Hackathon brought together over 3,000 students, researchers, and practitioners from 127 countries to build and showcase innovative work in large language model (LLM) agents, grow the AI agent community, and advance LLM agent technology.