iSchool faculty, staff, and students will participate in the 88th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), which will be held on November 14-18 in Arlington, Virginia. ASIS&T will also host a Virtual Satellite Meeting on December 11-12. This year’s theme is "Difficult Conversations: The Role of Information Science in the Age of Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence." This meeting is the premier international conference dedicated to the study of information, people, and technology in contemporary society.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Associate Professor Maria Bonn will assume the presidency of the ASIS&T Board of Directors.
During the ASIS&T job placement service, Interim Dean Emily Knox and Executive Associate Dean J. Stephen Downie will be conducting informational sessions about the iSchool's open faculty positions. The sessions will take place on Sunday, November 17, from 1:00–4:30 p.m. in Room 2.
Saturday, November 8
Informatics PhD student Claudia Grisales Bohorquez co-led the virtual workshop "Best Practices for Ethics of Care When Engaging Vulnerable Communities."
Friday, November 14
Postdoctoral Research Associate Bogeum Choi will co-moderate Preconference Symposium 5: Information Behavior Research and Practice in the Age of Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (SIG-USE). Postdoctoral Research Associate Ece Gumusel will participate as a panelist during the symposium.
PhD students Melissa Wilfley and Evan Allgood will present their co-authored paper "Endangered Knowledge and Ethical Memory: Transgender Archival Resistance and the Future of Agentic Browsers" during Preconference Symposium 2: Investigating Interdisciplinary Approaches to Responsible and Ethical AI: Challenges and Opportunities (SIG-AI).
Saturday, November 15
Assistant Professor Travis L. Wagner will co-moderate Preconference Symposium 6: Exploring Information-as-potentiality: Methods for Design and Evaluation (SIG-USE), during which Professor Christopher Lueg will present his paper "Information Science Challenges of an 'Animal Turn.'"
Manika Lamba, former postdoctoral research associate, will co-moderate Preconference Symposium 11: Forging Ahead: Librarianship and Information Services in Times of Technological, Cultural, and Political Change (USMW Chapter). During this symposium, recent graduate Kyrie Zhixuan Zhou (PhD '25) will present two papers—"A Social Media Perspective on Inclusive Education for Students with Intellectual Disabilities in China," and "Toward Conducting DEI (Accessibility) Research in Library Settings with Limited Funding"—and PhD student Evan Allgood will present his paper "Hide and Seek: Helping Patrons Uncover (Intentionally) Hidden Archival Materials."
The following eight Illinois students were selected for the Doctoral Colloquium: Chenyue Jiao, Tzu-Kun (Esther) Hsiao, Jessie Mae Maimone, Yuanxi Fu, Xinhui Hu, Chris Wiley, Malik Oyewale Salami, and Kyra Milan Abrams. Assistant Professor Emily Maemura will serve as one of the mentors during the colloquium.
Sunday, November 16
Assistant Professor Travis L. Wagner and PhD student Evan Allgood will present their paper, "'There’s a Kind of Comfort in Identifying, But Visibility Is a Double-Edged Sword': Framing LGBTQIA+ Finding Aid Work within Queer Theory," during Paper Session 3: Making the Invisible Visible: Cultural Heritage and Curation.
Postdoctoral Research Associate Bogeum Choi will present the co-authored paper, "Unpacking College Students' Mental Health Discourse through YouTube Comments: Insights from Topic Modeling and Sentiment Analysis," during Paper Session 5: Human–AI Relationships.
Associate Professors Melissa Ocepek and Karen Wickett will co-lead the interactive session "Alternative Event 7: A Difficult and Necessary Conversation on Abuse in Our Work."
Monday, November 17
Professor and Interim Dean Emily Knox and Affiliate Professor Clara M. Chu will be panelists during "Panel 10: Academic Speech in Times of Political Disruption: Implications for Information Scholarship and Practice."
PhD student Ramazan Yener, Postdoctoral Research Associate Ece Gumusel, and Associate Professor Masooda Bashir will present their paper, "Can I Trust This Chatbot? Assessing User Privacy in AI-Healthcare Chatbot Applications," during Paper Session 10: AI in Healthcare.
Professor Michael Twidale will take part in "Panel 12: Ethnographic Variations."
Associate Professor Karen Wickett and Assistant Professors Emily Maemura and Travis L. Wagner will take part in "Panel 11: Digital Curation Education for New Forms of Disappearance."
PhD student Maria Janina Sarol, Affiliate Associate Professor Jodi Schneider, and Associate Professor Halil Kilicoglu will present their paper, "Automatic Identification of Citation Distortions in Biomedical Literature: A Case Study," during Paper Session 13: AI in Scientific Publishing.
Associate Professors Melissa Ocepek and Karen Wickett, and Assistant Professors Travis L. Wagner and Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo will take part in "Panel 14: Sustainable Scholarship: Safety and Self-Care in Research and Work."
J. Stephen Downie, professor and co-director of the HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC); HTRC Associate Director for Research Support Services Glen Layne-Worthey; PhD student You Peng; alum Sophie Nikolov (MSIM '25); and Manika Lamba, former postdoctoral research associate, will present "Metadata Enrichment of Long Text Documents Using Large Language Models" during Paper Session 18: Large Language Models to Improve Systems.
Assistant Professor Emily Maemura will present her paper, "What is a Data Document? Analyzing Four Emerging Data Documentation Frameworks in AI/ML," during Paper Session 16: Science and AI.
Assistant Professor Travis L. Wagner will co-present the paper, "'If I Were Given the Opportunity in Today’s World at 18 to go be in a Seedy, Dirty Gay Bar to Meet Community, I Would': Informal Functions, Loss, and Transformation of Queer Spaces," during Paper Session 19: Spaces, Communities, and Information. [Best Long Paper Award]
Associate Professor Peter Darch will take part in "Panel 21: Responsible AI: Fostering Ethical and Inclusive Information Ecosystems."
Professor Jiangping Chen will take part in "Panel 19: Critical Knowledge and Skills for Academic Librarians in the Age of Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence."
President's Reception and Poster Session
PhD students Yaman Yu, Yiren Liu, Jingfang Zhang, and Qian Zhang; Associate Professor Yun Huang; and Professor Yang Wang will present "Understanding Generative AI Risks for Youth: An Empirical Taxonomy for Safer Digital Futures."
BSIS+DS student Diego José Marquez, recent graduate Kyrie Zhixuan Zhou (PhD '25), and Assistant Professor Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo will present their co-authored poster "You Are Allowed to Say More: ChatGPT Censorship on Controversial Topics and Contextual Prompting."
Assistant Professor Travis L. Wagner will co-present the poster "Representation and Authenticity in AI Generated, Curated, and Mediated Archives."
PhD student You Peng and Manika Lamba, former postdoctoral research associate, will present their co-authored poster "Wikipedia and AI for Mapping Cultural Diaspora."
PhD student Vuyokazi Jamieson and Affiliate Professor Clara M. Chu will present their co-authored poster "Disrupting Informed Consent: Refusal and Cultural Sovereignty in Indigenous Knowledge Practices."
PhD student Yu-Ju Yang will present her co-authored poster "Information Science Professional’s Engagement in Developing Data Documentation Frameworks for Machine Learning."
PhD student Ebubechukwu Uba will present her poster "Beyond Technology-First Narratives: Reframing Rural Educators as Information Professionals."
Informatics PhD student Claudia Grisales Bohorquez will present her poster "Intermittent and Emergent Social Support for ICT Use in a Remote Rural Community."
PhD students Roman Zapata and Alice Shinhye Cha will present their co-authored poster "A Systematic Review of Interactivity in Game-Based Learning with AI."
MSLIS students Wen-Ning Chen and Paulina Gryzbowicz will present their poster "Security and Privacy Challenges in AI-Powered Library Recommender Systems: A Systematic Literature Review."
MSLIS graduate Wen-Ning Chen will present her co-authored poster "Crafting Effective Metaphors for Science Communication: Insights from Cybersecurity Experts."
Informatics PhD student Emmy Tither and Assistant Professor Travis L. Wagner will present their poster "'Hard Drives are the Tip of the Iceberg': Using r/datahoarder to Understand Conceptions of Data Risk."
PhD student Chris Wiley will present his poster "Digital (Un)Belonging: Black Trans Men’s Information Practices in Marginalizing Sociotechnical Systems."
Tuesday, November 18
Assistant Professor Travis L. Wagner will present their co-authored paper, "'Workhorses and Show Ponies': The Role of 501(c)(3) Recordkeeping Requirements on the Queer Activist Work of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence™," during Paper Session 22: Activism, AI, and Identity.
Affiliate Professor Clara M. Chu will present her co-authored paper, "Fueling Conversations: AI Education Across the iSchools in the US and Canada," during Paper Session 23: AI in Higher Education.
Virtual Meeting
Thursday, December 11
PhD student Ruby L. Martinez and Assistant Professor Karen Wickett will co-present their paper, "Towards an Ethical Framework of Metadata for Repatriation," during Virtual Paper Session 1: Ethics in AI.
Assistant Professor Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo and recent PhD graduate Zachary Kilhoffer (PhD '25) will present their co-authored paper, "'I'm Not Confident in Debiasing AI Systems Since I Know Too Little': Designing and Evaluating Hands-on Gender Bias Tutorials for AI Practitioners and Learners," during Virtual Paper Session 8: LIS Education.
Recent PhD graduate Andrew Zalot (PhD '25) will take part in the session "Brenda Dervin’s 'Sense-Making Methodology: What Has Been Achieved and Why It Matters Now?'"
Friday, December 12
Professor Catherine Blake and PhD student Ryan Wang will present the poster "In the Weeds: Entity Detection for Plant Based Foods."
Informatics PhD student Emmy Tither will present the poster "Five Tools for Workshopping Humanitarian Responses to Harmful Information in Conflict Settings."
Assistant Professor Travis L. Wagner will take part in the panel "A Critical Dialogue on Ethics and Practices for Digital Research with ‘Difficult’ to Reach Populations."
Informatics PhD student Daniela Delgado Ramos will present the poster "Technological Mediation of Trust in Grassroots Organizations: A Case Study of Social Networking Platforms (SNPs)."