Gryk defends dissertation

Michael Gryk
Michael Gryk

Doctoral candidate Michael Gryk successfully defended his dissertation, "Explorations in Provenance in the Information Sciences," on May 3.

His committee included Professor Bertram Ludäscher (chair); Professor J. Stephen Downie; Professor Michael Twidale; and Rhiannon Bettivia, assistant professor of library and information science at Simmons University.

Abstract: Provenance is important throughout Library and Information Science and is particularly important for the information infrastructures which support the computational aspects of the natural sciences. This is highlighted by the prominence of provenance as a plank in the FAIR principles for data stewardship (principle R1.2). While traditionally focused on the history/lineage of physical objects, provenance is commonly accepted to apply to digital objects such as the results of computation as well as to the recipes for computing; in the case of recipes this prospective provenance is critical for reproducibility. This dissertation includes attempts to FAIRify the reporting and execution of workflows within a domain of natural science for better data stewardship to support both data reuse and reusability; as well as proposing that there remains a gap in our ability to fully document provenance as there are more story-telling tenses than just the past (retrospective) and future (prospective). There is also the subjunctive (conditional) and perhaps many others. Supporting new flavors of provenance requires new modeling constructs which are described in the final chapters.

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

He receives Amazon Research Award to improve monitoring of Earth’s ecosystem

A new project led by Professor Jingrui He aims to help scientists monitor disruptions to the Earth’s ecosystem, such as climate change. She recently received support for her work through an Amazon Research Award, which includes $60,000 in cash and an additional $40,000 in Amazon Web Services (AWS) credits.

Jingrui He