Doctoral candidate Melissa Villa-Nicholas successfully defended her dissertation, "Latinas in Telecommunications: Intersectional Experiences in the Bell System," on June 30.

Around the world, the ubiquity of social media is growing, but its effects remain to be fully understood. Alumnus Anatoliy Gruzd (@gruzd) explores the impacts of social media on modern life, from interpersonal communication to the formation of political structures, in his research.

The Library School Alumni Association (LSAA) has announced the 2016 recipients of its annual awards. The recipients were recognized on June 26 at the LSAA Annual Meeting and reception held at the annual meeting of the American Library Association in Orlando.

Several members of the iSchool community will give presentations at the 2016 Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School (DHOxSS) on July 4-8 at the University of Oxford. Attendees will follow one of eight workshop tracks throughout the week, and attend several additional lectures and a poster session.

Assistant Professor Jana Diesner has begun work on a new project with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI). The goal of the project, “Selection and Influence: Identification of link formation mechanisms in scientific collaboration networks,” is to study the roles of selection—the process of people forming relationship with similar others—and social influence—the increasing similarity of connected people over time—in scientific collaboration networks.

Georgeann Burch (MS '04), K-12 program coordinator, retired from the University on May 31, 2016. The first to serve in this role, she joined the iSchool in 2005 following experience as a school library media specialist. Under her direction, the program expanded in enrollments, offerings, and reputation.

Developed in the 1940s and 1950s, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy measures physical and chemical properties of atoms or molecules by measuring change in the magnetic resonance of the nuclei of atoms. The process is used by scientists for a variety of applications, such as substance identification. In biomolecular science, NMR supports discovery and identification of new drugs, disease and metabolic research, study of structural biology, and more.

Think for a moment about a meaningful event or time in your life, one of your strongest memories. Chances are you’re thinking of that memory not as a single instance in a vacuum but in the context of what led to it, the people who might have experienced it with you, or the consequences of the actions that took place. You’re probably thinking of that memory as a sequence with a beginning, middle, and end—as a story. 

Doctoral student Steve Witt (MS '95) is the recipient of the 2016 Donald G. Davis Article Award given by the Library History Round Table of the American Library Association (ALA). The award will be presented on June 26 at the 2016 ALA Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida, at the Library History Round Table Research Forum.

The iSchool at Illinois seeks nominations for the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award. The deadline for nominations is October 1, 2016.

Given annually, the award acknowledges individuals or groups who have furthered the cause of intellectual freedom, particularly as it impacts libraries and information centers and the dissemination of ideas.