Nandana Nallapu is learning about data science, both through her work in the classroom and as an intern for the John Deere Technology Innovation Center at the University of Illinois Research Park. With a bachelor's degree in information technology from SRKR Engineering College in India, she is building on her academic success by earning an MS in information management (MS/IM).

Master's student Jiayi Liu has received two awards to attend the CIKM 2017 International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, which will be held on November 6-10 in Singapore.

Nicole A. Cooke, assistant professor and MS/LIS program director, has received a Provost's Initiative on Teaching Advancement (PITA) grant, worth $7,500, for her proposal, "Inspiring Culturally Responsive Pedagogy." PITA grants support the implementation of teaching innovations and enhancements at the University of Illinois. 

The Board of Directors of the Illinois Library Association (ILA) unanimously approved the hire of Diane Foote (MS '06) as the organization's next executive director.

Master's student Sara Benson, copyright librarian and assistant professor at the University Library, and Harriett Green, affiliated faculty member and head of scholarly communication and publishing at the University Library, have been invited to present at the 2017 Triangle Scholarly Communication Institute (SCI 2017).

Senior Lecturer Maria Bonn is sharing her research on scholarly communication with scholars, professionals, practitioners, and educators through two major, education-focused conferences, the  14th Annual Open Education Conference and the Charleston Conference.

A multidisciplinary group from the University of Illinois and the University of Washington at Tacoma (UW Tacoma) has developed a novel platform to diagnose infectious disease at the point of care, using a smartphone as the detection instrument in conjunction with a test kit in the format of a credit card. 

Imagine a Facebook app that instantly predicts the likelihood of skin cancer. Waya.ai, a technology startup based in Champaign, has developed this open source app and is working on its next product—a smartphone app that can detect if a person has suffered a concussion. Ravijot Narang, a student in the iSchool's MS/IM program, is working on product strategy, product validation, market analysis, and customer development for the new company, which is dedicated to improving healthcare through the use of artificial intelligence and big data.

Allen Renear, dean of the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will step down from his role in August 2018 and return to the iSchool faculty.

The HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) will host its 2018 UnCamp on January 25-26 at the University of California, Berkeley. The primary venue will be the newly renovated Moffitt Library with breakout events in nearby campus locations, including the Berkeley Institute for Data Science, Morrison Library, D-Lab in Barrows Hall, and Academic Innovation Studio. Registration is now open.