Evans joins the School

Craig Evans
Craig Evans, Lecturer

This semester, the iSchool welcomed Craig Evans as a new lecturer. Evans will be the primary instructor for Introduction to Database Concepts and Applications (IS 206), a required course in the iSchool's undergraduate programs.

Evans brings over 25 years of experience working in global corporations, mid-sized corporations, and a startup that came out of a university project. He has held IT and consulting roles in a range of locations, including heavy manufacturing, mining, financial services, and government. After earning his Certificate in Advanced Unmanned Aircraft Systems from Parkland College, Evans founded a drone operations business, Vidaeris. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Wollongong and an MSLIS from the iSchool at Illinois. His graduate work focused on social network analysis.

"During my time as a grad student, I realized that the part of academe I enjoyed the most wasn't the research but teaching others. After decades in industry, when it came time to decide which direction I wanted to take after graduating, I decided that I wanted to take some of my experience and pay it back in the form of teaching the new generation of students that will be entering the workforce," said Evans. "When the opportunity to join the iSchool as specialized faculty came along, I jumped at the chance. The experience so far has been rewarding on a personal level, and I hope to continue nurturing curious minds and contributing to the students' ongoing success."

Tags:
Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

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 datafying 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

iSchool researchers to present at CHI 2025

iSchool faculty and students will present their research at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2025), which will be held from April 26 to May 1 in Yokohama, Japan. 

Knox appointed interim dean

Professor Emily Knox has been appointed to serve as interim dean of the School of Information Sciences, pending approval by the Board of Trustees. Until officially approved, her title will be interim dean designate. The appointment will begin April 1, 2025.

Emily Knox

iSchool instructors ranked as excellent

Fifty-six iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Fall 2024 and Winter 2024-2025. The rankings are released every semester, and results are based on the ratings from the Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) questionnaire forms maintained by Measurement and Evaluation in the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. 

iSchool Building