Members of Associate Professor Jingrui He's research group, the iSAIL Lab, will present their research at the 36th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2022), which will be held from November 29-December 1 in New Orleans, Louisiana, and also virtually. NeurIPS is one of the most prestigious and competitive international conferences in machine learning and computational neuroscience.  

J. Stephen Downie, iSchool professor and co-director of the HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC), and Glen Layne-Worthey, associate director for HTRC Research Support Services, along with partners in the University of Illinois Library, have been awarded $17,456 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Office of Digital Humanities. The team will contribute to the University of Kansas project, "Building Literacy and Curating (Critical Cultural) Knowledge in Digital Humanities (BLACK DH)."

Catherine Blake, professor in the School of Information Sciences and Health Innovation Professor in the Carle College of Medicine, has been named a fellow in the fourth cohort of the IAspire Leadership Academy, a leadership program aimed at helping STEM faculty from underrepresented backgrounds ascend to leadership roles at colleges and universities. The academy is part of the Aspire Alliance's Institutional Change Initiative, led by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the University of Georgia.

As he works toward his PhD in information sciences, William Langston is receiving financial support through the Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois Program (DFI). The program provides competitive need-based financial awards to underrepresented students in the state of Illinois who are interested in becoming full-time tenure-track faculty and staff at colleges and universities in Illinois.

MS/LIS student Katie Colson and Cora Godfrey (MS/LIS '22) won first prize for their paper at the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) conference's student forum. The conference, which supports innovation in metadata design and best practices across the metadata ecology, was held virtually on October 3-7.

With funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Associate Professor Jodi Schneider is leading a project in collaboration with the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) to prevent the spread of retracted research.

Schneider was recently awarded a $249,998 grant to continue her work to create consistent community practices for publishers, preprint repositories, and discovery services to identify and signal that publications have been retracted or have expressions of concern.

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. MS/LIS student Megha Bamola earned her bachelor's degree in urban planning from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Randomized clinical trials are valuable in determining the effectiveness of health treatments. But problems with design, execution or reporting of the trial process can lead to unreliable findings, excessive costs, and, potentially, harm for patients. Associate Professor Halil Kilicoglu and his colleagues seek to address this problem with the help of a $1,328,502 grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Two projects with iSchool connections are among the ten proposals that will receive a total of $14.2 million over the next three years as part of the University of Illinois Investment for Growth program. Since the program was created in 2018, the University has invested more than $78 million to provide seed funding for projects that generate revenue, advance the University's mission, and address areas of high and emerging student demand.

Dean and Professor Eunice E. Santos has been elected chair of the Computing Research Association (CRA) Deans Group. During her two-year term as chair, Santos will also be representing the Deans Group externally as needed. Previously, Santos served on the leadership team as vice chair and secretary. As chair, she will also have a seat on the CRA Board of Directors.