Julia Cross joined the iSchool in January as a research development coordinator. In her position, she supports faculty during different stages of the research process, helps identify funding sources and pair researchers with specific solicitations, monitors compliance with different research protocols, and provides support to programs such as Scholars in Residence, research fellowships, and the student research experience. 

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.

The Center for Children's Books (CCB) at the iSchool is hosting its annual book sale on February 18-19, 2024. Hundreds of brand-new children's books will be available for youth ages birth through high school. The titles represent the full spectrum of children’s publishing in fiction and nonfiction. 

Julie Owens joined the iSchool on January 8 as a senior grants and contracts coordinator. In her position, she will perform post-award administrative functions related to sponsored research projects. 

Associate Professor Kate McDowell will deliver two keynotes on library data storytelling this month. 

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.

Emily Valentine joined the iSchool on January 6 as an operations associate. In her new role, she will support the activities of business, finance, and human resources.

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.

The School of Information Sciences (iSchool) is pleased to announce the appointment of Melissa A. Wong (MSLIS '94) as editor-in-chief of its quarterly journal Library Trends, effective February 1, 2024. Her experience as a librarian, library director, author, editor, instructor, and instructional designer will advance the breadth of the journal's influence on practice and scholarship in the field of library and information science.