Chen appointed interim executive associate dean

Jiangping Chen
Jiangping Chen, Interim Executive Associate Dean and Visiting Professor

Jiangping Chen assumed the position of interim executive associate dean and visiting professor on August 16. In this role, she will work closely with Dean Eunice E. Santos to realize the iSchool's strategic goals and objectives. She also will provide leadership for the internal administration of the School, including oversight for the work of associate deans and assigned staff as well as the coordination of faculty affairs. Chen's position will become permanent following approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

Chen comes to the iSchool from the University of North Texas (UNT), where she served as Regents Professor and chair of the Department of Information Science. Her accomplishments include growing and shaping the department with a focus on educational programs and strategic research directions.

"Professor Chen's expertise is well aligned with our current needs. She will contribute significantly to the creation of well-formulated strategies to support our School's phenomenal growth, while emphasizing innovation and efficiency," said Santos.

Chen conducts research in information science, data science, and library science, and her expertise includes information retrieval and access, digital libraries, information services, information management, and data analytics. She is the founder of UNT's Intelligent Information Access (IIA) Lab, which explores methods for access, interaction, and analysis of large, distributed, heterogeneous, multimedia, and multilingual information. She currently focuses on applying data science techniques to information problems and misinformation. Her research has been supported by prestigious funders, such as the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Science Foundation.

Chen is adept at graduate and undergraduate instruction, developing and teaching courses in information science and data science. These courses include Introduction to Information Science, Digital Libraries, Information Architecture, Data Analysis and Knowledge Discovery, Research Methodology, Natural Language Processing, Data Modeling, and Web Database Systems.

Her professional contributions include authoring numerous publications, including a monograph on multilingual digital libraries, journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings as well as giving invited presentations and talks. She is actively involved in several organizations, and she has served as co-chair of the ALISE Council of Deans, Directors, and Chairs; editor-in-chief of The Electronic Library; and general chair of 2018 ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries.

"I am very excited to join the iSchool," said Chen. "I look forward to working with the wonderful faculty, staff, and students, and making my contributions to the School's vision and strategical goals," said Chen.

Chen holds a PhD in information transfer from Syracuse University, a master's degree in information science from the Library of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a bachelor's degree in information science from Wuhan University.

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Weech passes away

Professor Emeritus Terry Laverne Weech passed away on June 5, 2025, in Staunton, Virginia. He was the widower of Eunice Hovis Weech, who passed away on October 16, 2022. He is survived by his sister-in-law, Brenda Bruce, and her husband, Timothy, and cousins, Wilber Rehmann and Susan Henry Anderson.

Terry L Weech

Library Trends examines generative AI in libraries

The iSchool at Illinois is pleased to announce the publication of Library Trends 73 (3). With the rapid adoption of AI, coupled with increasing ethical concerns relating to AI usage, bias, and authorship, "Generative AI and Libraries: Applications and Ethics, Part I" is the first of two special issues that examine how librarians are grappling with the effects of AI on the field.

Cover of Library Trends 73 (4), Generative AI and Libraries. The cover design is shades of blue with abstract connection points.

Aubin Le Quéré to join the faculty

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Marianne Aubin Le Quéré will join the faculty as an assistant professor in August 2026, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Aubin Le Quéré is a PhD candidate in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University. For the 2025-2026 academic year, she will be a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy.

Marianne Aubin Le Quere

New project improves accessibility of health information through AI

Assistant Professor Yue Guo has received a $30,000 Arnold O. Beckman Research Award from the U of I Campus Research Board for her project, "Optimizing Personalization in Plain Language Summaries: Comparing Predictive and Interactive Approaches for Tailored Health Information." 

Yue Guo