Professor Yang Wang has been appointed by Governor JB Pritzker to serve on the newly created Autism Data Privacy Advisory Group, established under Executive Order 2025-02 to strengthen protections for the civil and human rights of people with autism in Illinois. 

Professor Dong Wang is the lead author of a book that offers a new perspective on human-centered AI design and human–AI collective intelligence. Social Intelligence: The New Frontier of Integrating Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence in Social Space, which was recently published by Springer Nature, is co-authored by Lanyu Shang (PhD '24) of Loyola Marymount University and Yang Zhang of Miami University.

iSchool faculty, staff, and students will participate in the Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy (TPRC 2025), which will be held from September 18–20 in Washington, DC.

A new book co-edited by Professor Emeritus Alistair Black and Associate Professor Bonnie Mak, along with Toni Weller (De Montfort University) and Laura Skouvig (University of Copenhagen), provides a field-defining, comprehensive study of information history. The Routledge Handbook of Information History, released last month by Routledge, examines how society, politics, culture, and technology have shaped information practices over millennia. The 638-page volume features more than forty contributors from around the world.

Associate Professor Jessie Chin has received a $215,000 grant from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS grant RFA-2411-44091) for a two-year project to improve how people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) manage depression. 

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. 

Interim Dean and Professor Emily Knox is among the five professors at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who have been named 2025 University Scholars in recognition of their achievements in teaching, scholarship, and service.

Droughts are increasingly recognized as environmental crises with far-reaching consequences, not just on water availability, but on agriculture, the economy, public health, and society. While current drought monitoring systems primarily focus on assessing drought severity using quantitative measurements, such as meteorological and hydrological data or economic losses, they often miss what matters most: how societies and communities are affected. 

Adjunct Lecturer Zachary Stier has been selected as the Early Career Award recipient of the 2025 Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Excellence in Teaching Award. He will be honored at an awards presentation during the ALISE 2025 Annual Conference, which will be held from October 6–8 in Kansas City, Missouri.

The iSchool is proud to announce that nine faculty members have received new appointments. Anita Say Chan, Kate McDowell, and Dong Wang have been promoted to professor. Nigel Bosch, Jessie Chin, Melissa Ocepek, Matthew Turk, and Karen Wickett have been promoted to associate professor with indefinite tenure. Associate Professor Rachel Adler has been granted indefinite tenure.