John A. Walsh, associate professor of information and library science at Indiana University and director of the HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC), has been selected by the iSchool faculty as a research fellow for the 2018-2020 academic years. Research fellows are chosen because their work is relevant to the interests of the School's faculty and students. During the period of their appointments, fellows give at least one public lecture.

Doctoral candidate E.E. Lawrence successfully defended their dissertation, "Reading for Democratic Citizenship: A New Model for Readers' Advisory," on March 28.

Serving as a mentor for iSchool students has been a rewarding experience for Leora Siegel (MS '91), senior director of the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Lenhardt Library. "My experiences over the past two decades as a librarian have provided insight into the profession, and I'm happy to share my knowledge if it can benefit a student or new grad or new professional, figuring out the path they wish to take," she said.

The following iSchool faculty, staff, and students will participate in iConference 2019, which will be held March 31-April 1 in Washington, D.C. The annual event brings together scholars, researchers, and information professionals to share insights on critical information issues. The theme of this year's conference is "Inform. Include. Inspire."

PhD student Linh Hoang presented her research with Assistant Professor Jodi Schneider at the AAAI 2019 Spring Symposium on Combining Machine Learning with Knowledge Engineering, which was held March 25-27 at Stanford University. 

MS/LIS student Vera Vasileva has been awarded an Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Student Scholarship to participate in the ACRL 2019 conference, which will be held April 10-13 in Cleveland, Ohio. At the conference, Vasileva will attend the presentation of "We Don't Need that Anymore, Exploring the Myths and Realities of the Impact of Digitization on Print Usage," a paper she coauthored with her graduate assistantship supervisor Thomas Teper, associate professor and associate dean of libraries for the University Library.

Eighteen iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Fall 2018. The rankings are released every semester, and results are based on 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 gave out ICES forms during the semester and who released their data for publication are included in the list.

Doctoral candidate Dianah T. Kacunguzi will present her research at the UP Carnegie Conference, which will be held from March 24-30 in Pretoria, South Africa.

This month doctoral candidate Jim Jones presented his digital preservation work at the Society for Cinema & Media Studies 60th Annual Conference (SCMS 2019) and participated in the PBCore Workshop for Public Media Users and Educators.

Associate Professor Victoria Stodden has been reappointed as a member of the Advisory Group for the National Academy of Engineering Online Ethics Center (OEC). OEC provides resources for understanding and addressing ethically significant issues in science and engineering, serving those who promote learning and advance the understanding of responsible research and practice.