iSchool researchers to present at ChLA 2026

iSchool faculty and staff will present their research at the Children's Literature Association (ChLA) annual conference, which will be held from May 28-30 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The theme of this year's conference is "Neighbors and Neighborhoods in Children's Literature, Media, and Culture."

Daniel Kraus (MSLIS '05) will be the featured author on Friday, May 29, and sign copies of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Angel Down.

Thursday, May 28

• Associate Professor Sarah Park Dahlen will moderate the roundtable "From Needs to Neighbors: A Decade Reflection on ChLA's 2016 Needs of Minority Scholars."
• At the session "Building a Career: Building a Mentorship Neighborhood," Dahlen will speak about building meaningful mentoring relationships and host a breakout group.
• Associate Professor Elizabeth Hoiem will present "Queer Gender and Sexuality at Sea in Mrs. Leicester's School (1809) by Charles and Mary Lamb" at the panel "Neighbors Few and Far Between: Hermits, Castaways, and Rural Children in Nineteenth-Century Children’s Literature."

Friday, May 29 

• Dahlen will participate in the panels "Reclaiming Our Time: Diversity in Children’s and Young Adult Literature" and "Mr. Censor's Neighborhood: Writing, Reading, and Teaching Children's Literature Today."
• Postdoctoral Research Associate Cheeno Marlo M. Sayuno will present "Queer Filipino American Neighborhoods: Renegotiating Kapwa in Curato's Flamer and Rod Pulido's Chasing Pacquiao."

Saturday, May 30

• Sayuno will present "Minecraft and Roblox as Virtual Archipelagic Neighborhoods: Filipino Child Gamers' Transmedia Experiences in Sandbox Games."
• Glen Layne-Worthey, associate director for research support services at the HathiTrust Research Center, will present "Historical Children's Book Reviews as Big Data," a paper he coauthored with Assistant Director of the Center for Children’s Books (CCB) Suzan Alteri, Professor and CCB Director Sara L. Schwebel, recent MSIM graduate Tanmoy Debnath, and recent BSIS graduate Marshall Warner, and former iSchool Research Fellow Rebekah Fitzsimmons (Carnegie Mellon University).