Risk assessments are conducted to determine if a chemical found in the environment is harmful to public health; for example, answering questions such as "does chemical 'x' promote cancer?" Conducting an impartial analysis of chemicals is thus critical to ensure that public policies reflect the best available scientific evidence. Unfortunately, the process of retrieving, extracting, and analyzing findings reported in scientific literature is time consuming and can delay when policies are updated to reflect new evidence.

BS/IS student Jared Canty is learning new skills through the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program (URAP). Canty, a senior from the Chicago area who is also majoring in brain and cognitive sciences, applied to the program because he wanted to obtain more research experience before graduation. For his project, he is documenting bilingual (Spanish-English) speech from individuals residing within the Midwest.

Doctoral candidate Lo Lee successfully defended her dissertation, "Understanding Information Activities of Hobbyists in the Making of Arts and Crafts Across Space," on April 4.

Assistant Professor Elizabeth Hoiem has received the Humanities Research Institute (HRI) Prize for Best Faculty Research for her paper, "The Progress of Sugar: Consumption as Complicity in Children’s Books about Slavery and Manufacturing, 1790-2015." The award recognizes outstanding humanities research by a faculty member at the University of Illinois.

Associate Professor Emily Knox will deliver the Masha Dexter Lecture on Gender, Sexuality, and Public Policy at Brown University on April 7. The purpose of the annual lecture is to "memorialize and promote in other students Masha Dexter's extraordinary energy and engagement with the overlapping issues of gender, sexuality, and public policy, as reflected in the broad range of her own activities."

Doctoral candidate Dianah T. Kacunguzi successfully defended her dissertation, "Knowledge Preservation Practices of Herbalists in Uganda: An Ethnographic Study," on March 31

The Community Data Clinic has announced its first cohort of Community Media, Data, and Technology (CMDT) Fellows. The new program is part of the "Reparative Data and Media Initiative: Extending Racial and Research Justice in Champaign County" project, which is funded through the University's Call to Action initiative and led by Anita Say Chan, associate professor and director of the Community Data Clinic, and Katie Shumway, director of the Community Learning Lab in the School of Social Work. The fellowships provide annual funding and technical support to community organizations in Champaign County "looking to advance promising ideas to change local communities and systems."

The following iSchool faculty, staff, and students will participate in iConference 2022, which will be held virtually on February 28-March 4. The annual event brings together scholars, researchers, and information professionals to share insights on critical information issues. The theme of this year's conference is "Information for a Better World: Shaping the Global Future."

Associate Professor Jingrui He will be a keynote speaker at the Machine Learning on Graphs Workshop during the 15th Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) International WSDM Conference. WSDM, which will be held virtually on February 21-25, is one of the premier conferences on web-inspired research involving search and data mining.

Associate Professor Yang Wang has received a one-year, $100,000 grant from Meta for his project, "Global South Citizens' Privacy Perceptions and Management of Targeted Ads on Social Media." His doctoral students Tanusree Sharma, Smirity Kaushik, and Yaman Yu will serve as co-investigators. The goal of the project is to learn from users in the Global South, with a focus on India and Bangladesh, about their experience with targeted ads.