Associate Professor Anita Say Chan has been selected as a 2019-2020 Data & Society Faculty Fellow. Data & Society is a research institute focused on the social and cultural issues arising from automation and data-centric technology. Its programs draw together researchers and a broad network of practitioners to bring new perspectives and intellectual breadth to the institute's work.

Five master's students have been named 2019-2020 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. Established in 1997, the Spectrum Scholarship Program promotes diversity among graduate-level students pursuing degrees in library and information studies through ALA-accredited programs.

Assistant Professor Elizabeth Hoiem presented her research at the Children's Literature Association conference (ChLA 2019), which was held June 13-15 in Indianapolis. With the theme "Activism and Empathy," this year's conference

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Halil Kilicoglu will join the faculty as an associate professor in August 2019, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. He is currently a staff scientist at the U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Doctoral candidate Shubhanshu Mishra successfully defended his dissertation, "Information Extraction from Digital Social Trace Data with Applications to Social Media and Scholarly Communication Data," on June 24.

After more than forty years of dedicated service, Professor and Executive Associate Dean Linda C. Smith will retire from the School of Information Sciences at the end of June. A renowned leader in the LIS field, Smith is the recipient of numerous honors, including ALISE awards for her teaching, service, and contributions to LIS education; the ASIS&T Award of Merit as well as Outstanding Information Science Teacher Award; recognition as a Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Beta Phi Mu Award for distinguished service to LIS education; and most recently, recognition as an Illinois Library Luminary.

Assistant Professor Jodi Schneider will present her medical informatics research at the 3rd European Conference on Argumentation (ECA 2019), which will take place on June 24-27 in Groningen, the Netherlands. The biennial conference attracts scholars on argumentation worldwide from various disciplines. The theme of ECA 2019 is "Reason to Dissent."

Doctoral candidate Jimi Jones successfully defended his dissertation, "So Many Standards, So Little Time: An Analysis of Two Video Digitization Standards Groups," on June 19.

Dean Allen Renear presented Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden with her honorary degree at the University of Illinois Commencement on May 11, 2019. Below are his remarks and the video from commencement.

Anne Miskewitch (MS '05), deputy director for Schaumburg Township District Library, and Elisandro Cabada (MS '17), medical and bioengineering librarian at the University of Illinois, have been selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants to participate in the American Library Association Leadership Institute.