Doctoral candidate Nikolaus Parulian successfully defended his dissertation, "A Conceptual Model for Transparent, Reusable, and Collaborative Data Cleaning," on June 29.

Doctoral candidate Ruohua Han successfully defended her dissertation, "Exploring the Sharing of Autobiographical Memories and Memory Objects in Chinese Families," on June 15.

The American Library Association (ALA) will hold its 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago on June 22-27.

A new study conducted by PhD student Morgan Lundy, which was recently published in the International Journal of Communication, reveals how TikTok's unique features have been used to spread COVID-19 misinformation. Unlike Twitter, which uses a text format, the micro-video format of TikTok makes it more difficult to detect deceptive information.

Thirteen iSchool master's students were named 2022-2023 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. This "Spectrum Scholar Spotlight" series highlights the School's scholars. Zhaneille Green holds a BA in geography and history from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Each year, the School of Information Sciences recognizes a group of outstanding students for their achievement in academics as well as a number of attributes that contribute to professional success. Congratulations to this year's honorees!

The Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) is pleased to announce that Elizabeth Ayorinde and Victor Lopez are the recipients of the Building Diversity Graduate Assistantships for the 2023-2024 academic year. The assistantships will provide experience, mentoring, and networking to participants with the goal of increasing the number of staff members from underrepresented groups at Illinois' two and four-year public and private college and university libraries.

Last month, Leep student Hui Liu was selected as the winner of the iSchool's t-shirt design contest. Her design was based on the prompt, "The Power of Information," which is also the School's tagline. Participants were asked to submit designs that illustrated the tagline from a student perspective.

Thirteen iSchool master's students were named 2022-2023 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. This "Spectrum Scholar Spotlight" series highlights the School's scholars. Daynali Flores-Rodriguez holds an MA and PhD in comparative and world literature from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and BA in comparative literature from the University of Puerto Rico.

Xochitl Quiroz decided to pursue an MSLIS degree because she wanted to help college students develop information literacy as well as assist students and faculty with their reference needs. As she crosses the stage at the upcoming iSchool convocation, Quiroz will have the satisfaction of knowing that she is on her way to meeting her goal. This summer, she will begin her new job as a humanities and first years' engagement librarian at Smith College.