School of Information Sciences

Record number of instructors ranked as excellent

iSchool sign

Fifty-seven iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Spring 2025—a record number for the School. 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. Only those instructors who administered ICES at least once during the semester and who released their data for publication are included in the list. 

Faculty and instructors appearing on the list include Barbara Alvarez, Anne Barnhart, Sara Benson, Stephanie Besser, Dawn Betts-Green, Bobby Bothmann, Ian Brooks, Patrick Cain, Jessie Chin, Kahyun Choi, Ryan Cordell, Sarah Park Dahlen, Linda Diekman, J. Stephen Downie, Damian Duffy, Karen Egan, Quinn Morgan Ferris, Yue Guo, Jeanne Holba-Puacz, Karen Jenkins, Halil Kilicoglu, Emily Knox, Ismini Lourentzou, Thomas MacMullen, Rachel Magee, Jessie Mae Maimone, Kristen Mattson, Amanda McLellan, Owen Monroe, David Mussulman, Jill Naiman, Kate Quealy-Gainer, Colin Rhinesmith, Dominic Saebeler, Melissa Salrin, Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo, JooYoung Seo, Yoo-Seong Song, Zachary Stier, Jennifer Hain Teper, Carol Tilley, Tre Tomaszewski, Kevin Trainor, Michael Twidale, Ted Underwood, John Vincler, Travis Wagner, Ryan Wang, John Weible, Elizabeth Wickes, Karen Wickett, Craig Wills, Martin Wolske, Michael Wonderlich, Melissa Wong, Zhiwen (Jerome) You, and Yang Zhang. 

Brooks, Diekman, Downie, Ferris, Holba-Puacz, Knox, Sanfilippo, Song, Teper, Twidale, and Underwood received the highest ranking of "outstanding."

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Seo selected as CAS Beckman Fellow

Assistant Professor JooYoung Seo has been selected as a Center for Advanced Study (CAS) Beckman Fellow for the 2026-2027 academic year. CAS is one of the most prestigious faculty recognition programs at the University of Illinois. Its primary mission is to identify and support the most productive and innovative faculty across all disciplines. CAS Fellows are nominated by their unit heads and selected by the Center's permanent faculty through a competitive review process, with final approval by the Board of Trustees. 

JooYoung Seo

Spectrum Scholar Spotlight: Nathaniel Allen Pila

Eight iSchool master's students have been named 2025–2026 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association. This "Spectrum Scholar Spotlight" series highlights the School's scholars. MSLIS student Nathaniel Allen Pila earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Mount Holyoke College.

Nathaniel Allen Pila

iSchool participation in iConference 2026

The following iSchool faculty and students will participate in iConference 2026, which will be held virtually from March 23–26 and physically from March 29–April 2 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The theme of this year's conference is "Information Literacies, Authenticity and Use: The Move Towards a Digitally Enlightened Society."

Wang receives AccessComputing funding for video game project

Informatics PhD student Olive Wang has been awarded a minigrant by AccessComputing, an organization that supports people with disabilities in computing. The $5,000 grant will support Wang's work on the video game Loadouts, which teaches players why accessibility is important. In the game, players learn why video games are inaccessible for players who are low-vision and how accessibility features such as high contrast, auditory cues, and multimodality can be effective.

Olive Wang

Chan’s "Predatory Data" named a 2026 PROSE Award finalist

Professor Anita Say Chan's book Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future (University of California Press, 2025) has been named a finalist in the Computing and Information Sciences Category of the 2026 PROSE Awards. The annual awards bestowed by the Association of American Publishers recognize the very best in professional and scholarly publishing and celebrate works that have made significant advancements in their respective fields of study.

Anita Say Chan

School of Information Sciences

501 E. Daniel St.

MC-493

Champaign, IL

61820-6211

Voice: (217) 333-3280

Email: ischool@illinois.edu

Back to top