Associate Professor Rachel Adler, Associate Professor Kyungwon Koh, and Assistant Professor Meicen Sun are among the twenty faculty from the University of Illinois System who were selected for the 2024-2025 cohort of the Public Voices Fellowship. The program is part of a national initiative led by The OpEd Project to help experts from underrepresented groups to be positioned as public thought leaders in their fields and contribute to the national dialogue around important issues.
Members of the cohort will attend four sessions during the academic year and will be paired with a journalism mentor for individual editing and coaching, with the goal of publishing two or more op-ed pieces during the program. Those who complete the one-year fellowship will join a national network of peers, allowing for knowledge-sharing and innovation across multiple institutions.
Adler's work focuses on human-computer interaction, accessibility, and computer science education. She is particularly interested in designing applications for and with people with disabilities. Her recent projects include co-designing a mobile health application to empower cancer survivors with disabilities, co-designing a mobile health peer navigator intervention for people with disabilities, and creating simulation games to teach students about accessible design. She holds a PhD in computer science from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Koh is the director of the Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab, and her expertise encompasses library and information services for youth, the maker movement in libraries, learning and community engagement, information behavior and literacies, and competencies for information professionals. She is the recipient of an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to connect and advance library makerspaces, and through the Fab Lab, she is co-leading a new program to bridge and enhance the creative capabilities of local maker communities. Koh holds a PhD in library and information studies from Florida State University.
Sun's research examines the political economy of information, the geopolitics of data, and information policy. Her writings have appeared in academic and policy outlets, including International Organization, Foreign Policy Analysis, Harvard Business Review, World Economic Forum, and the Asian Development Bank Institute. She has conducted research at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and at the UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa. Sun is a 2024 Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) Emerging Scholar, an honor that recognizes exceptional, rising scholars in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT). She holds a PhD in political science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.