Three of the twelve projects that recently received funding through the Chancellor's Call to Action Research Program to Address Racism and Social Justice are led or co-led by iSchool researchers. The program is a $2 million annual commitment by the University of Illinois to respond to the critical need for universities across the nation to prioritize research focused on systemic racial inequities and injustices that exist not only in communities but in higher education itself.

PhD student Kainen Bell has been selected as a 2024 Global Policy Fellow at the Institute for Technology and Society (ITS) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was one of ten researchers selected worldwide who share common interests in technology and its interfaces with law and who want to expand their knowledge about the Brazilian technological context. 

Associate Professor Rachel Adler and Teaching Assistant Professor Jill Naiman have been selected for the 2024 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grant Writing Series program in the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute (IHSI). Led by faculty who have demonstrated a history of success with NIH proposals, the biennial NIH Grant Writing Series is designed to prepare Illinois faculty to submit their first R01 or other individual investigator proposals to the NIH.

Assistant Professor Meicen Sun was selected as a 2024 Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) Emerging Scholar and presented her research at the PTC Annual Conference, which was held from January 21-24 in Honolulu, Hawaii. PTC is a global, nonprofit organization promoting the advancement of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the Pacific Rim. 

This “Spectrum Scholar Spotlight” series highlights the School's scholars. MSLIS student Janelle Lyons earned her BA in French and Francophone studies from the University of Florida and her MA in international affairs from The George Washington University.

Professor Jingrui He has been recognized as a 2023 Distinguished Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world's largest educational and scientific computing society. The 2023 inductees are longstanding ACM members who were selected by their peers for work that has advanced computing, fostered innovation across various fields, and improved computer science education. 

The School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign seeks nominations for the 2023 Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award. The deadline for nominations is March 15, 2024. The award is cosponsored by Sage.

Professor Jingrui He has been awarded a two-year, $600,000 grant from the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute to improve modeling climate change and its impact across multiple application domains. He and a team of researchers from the University of Illinois and IBM will build Climate Runtime, a computational framework integrating cutting-edge capabilities from climate foundation models and multimodal fusion. This framework will allow for accurate prediction and quantification of weather and climate events and their impact in areas such as finance and agriculture.

Ted Quiballo (MSLIS '17) has been selected for a 2024 I Love My Librarian Award. Honorees were selected for their outstanding public service accomplishments. The award is administered by the American Library Association.

Associate Professor Emily Knox has been inducted as an Illinois Library Luminary. The Illinois Library Luminary Program, an initiative of the Illinois Library Association, recognizes those who have made a significant contribution to Illinois libraries. Knox's commitment to intellectual freedom and to shaping the next generation of librarians has touched every library in Illinois.