Doug Litts always knew he wanted to be an art historian. Though born in New Jersey, his family moved to Florida when he was nine, so when it was time for college, the University of Florida (in Gainesville) was the logical place to study it. But what can you do with a BA in art history?

Assistant Professor Matthew Turk has been recognized by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) as an outstanding 2016-2017 SPIN mentor. The SPIN (Students Pushing Innovation) internship at NCSA provides undergraduates at Illinois with the opportunity to apply their skills to real challenges in areas such as high-performance computing, data analysis and visualization, and cybersecurity.

Sara Tompson (MS '87) has been named a 2017 Special Libraries Association (SLA) Fellow. Fellowship in SLA is granted annually to no more than five mid-career SLA members for their service to the association and the information profession. Fellows advise the association’s Board of Directors, prepare necessary documentation, and alert the membership to issues and trends warranting action.

Doctoral student Craig Willis has received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to work with the biomedical and healthCAre Data Discovery Index Ecosystem (bioCADDIE)/DataMED team on a pilot project this summer. The award is based on his participation in the 2016 bioCADDIE Dataset Retrieval Challenge.

Each year, the School recognizes a group of outstanding students for their achievement in academics as well as a number of attributes that contribute to professional success. The following student awards were presented at the School's Convocation ceremony on May 14, 2017.

The University of Illinois has long been a leader in accessibility for persons with disabilities. This tradition continues with a new web app called "Access Illinois" created by MS student Mark McCarthy and his team members Matt Arensdorf (undergraduate student, computer science) and Emily Chen (PhD student, computational linguistics). The app earned the team first place in HackCulture.

Thirty minority students were recruited in the early 1970s to attend the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences (now the School of Information Sciences) at the University of Illinois. Called the Carnegie Scholars, all but one of the black and Latino students graduated, and they went on to successful careers in and out of the library profession.

The App Authors project has been underway for over a year now, bringing kids and technology together to create apps through a child-centered curriculum at Kenwood Elementary and the Douglass Branch of the Champaign Public Library. The program, developed by the iSchool's Center for Children's Books (CCB), provides kids with varying levels of experience the opportunity to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. 

Daniel S. Katz, iSchool affiliated faculty member and assistant director for scientific software and applications at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), is coleading a group that is working to encourage broad adoption of a consistent policy for software citation across disciplines. 

Doctoral candidate Andrea K. Thomer successfully defended her dissertation, "Site-Based Data Curation: Bridging Data Collection Protocols and Curatorial Processes at Scientifically Significant Sites," on May 8.