Brett Peugh joined the iSchool on January 2 as an endpoint services specialist. He comes to the School from the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (CITL) on campus.  In his new position, Peugh will order, install, and provide second-level tech support for the laptops and desktops in the School.

In the very back of the American Writers Museum there is a corner where two walls meet, each filled from top to bottom with words, seemingly random. The light is low, and people gather as a projector illuminates these words to highlight quotes from famous authors and create shapes such as rolling waves and the distinct torch of the Statue of Liberty. Every eight minutes it refreshes itself and is mesmerizing to watch. It creates meaning out of disorder, ever-changing both in perspective and content.

Anita Say Chan, associate professor in the iSchool and the Department of Media and Cinema Studies, is the recipient of a 2019-2020 Fiddler Innovation Faculty Fellowship from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). The Fiddler Fellowship is part of a $2 million endowment from Jerry Fiddler and Melissa Alden to the University of Illinois in support of the Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media (eDream) Institute at NCSA.

Lindsey Sharp joined the iSchool on December 18 as a senior instructional technology support specialist. Sharp comes to the School from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, where she worked in various roles involving educational technology for Applied Technologies for Learning in the Arts and Sciences (ATLAS). In her most recent position at ATLAS, she managed the student support team, provided instruction design support, and was involved in the LAS online administration and steering committee.

Donna Bessant (MS '70) wants today's library and information science students to succeed in their chosen profession and experience the "joyful rewards" of working with young people, as she did during her career. To lend them a hand, she has directed a portion of her estate to establish scholarships for iSchool students in need. The scholarships will support everyday expenses and advance the short- and long-term goals for students who plan to work with children and young adult services in libraries.

The staff at The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (BCCB) has announced the 2019 Blue Ribbons, their choices for the best of children's and young adult literature for the year. Blue Ribbons are chosen annually by BCCB reviewers and represent what they believe to be outstanding examples of fiction, nonfiction, and picture books for youth.

Gregory Knott (MS '17), an administrator for nearly two decades at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a graduate of two U of I System universities, has been appointed secretary of the Board of Trustees and the University, President Tim Killeen announced.

Affiliate Professor Karrie Karahalios, professor of computer science, been recognized by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, as a 2019 Distinguished Member.

This semester, students in Associate Professor Yoo-Seong Song's Applied Business Research class (IS 540) worked with COUNTRY Financial at the Research Park on a project examining the impact of autonomous vehicles and smart cities on the insurance industry. The student consulting team's research provided the company with a glimpse of how the additional liability autonomous vehicles bring would change the landscape of the insurance industry.

Director of the Center for Health Informatics and iSchool Research Scientist Ian Brooks gave an invited talk at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Kaleidoscope academic conference, which was held on December 4-6 in Atlanta, Georgia. ITU is the United Nations' specialized agency for information and communication technologies. Brooks’ presentation was part of the WHO special panel on the digital transformation of the health sector.