Divya Tantri (MSIM '22) serves as a technical product manager for Microsoft. She credits the iSchool for helping her develop a strong foundation in the key areas required for effective product management.

iSchool faculty, staff, and students will present their research and contribute in a number of other ways at DH2023, the annual conference of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO), on July 10-14 in Graz, Austria. The digital humanities (DH) conference is the largest event of the international DH community and unites scholars from across the globe. The theme of this year's conference is "Collaboration as Opportunity."

Office Support Specialist Dimitria Johnson has been elected president of Illinois Administrative Professionals (IAP, formerly known as The Secretariat), an organization for University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign employees in certain Civil Service classifications. She began her one-year term on July 1.

The iSchool hosted a 130th anniversary celebration on June 25 at the American Writers Museum in Chicago. The event, which was held in conjunction with the American Library Association Annual Conference, included a keynote address and presentations, along with time for guests to mingle and explore the museum.

Professor Catherine Blake has been named associate dean for academic affairs. In this new role, she provides leadership and oversight for academic programs, including program development, curriculum coordination, and continuous improvement of educational experiences.

The iSchool Alumni Association (ISAA) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2022 Alumni Awards: Emily Knox (Distinguished Alumna Award), Pia Hunter (Leadership Award), and Ruth Shasteen (Distinguished Service Award).

Hanna Jeter (MSLIS '15) was an elementary school librarian who had just made the jump to middle school when she learned she would be teaching a class on digital citizenship and media literacy.

In honor of Professor Emerita Linda C. Smith's contributions to the field of library and information science (LIS), Anita S. Coleman and Martha Kyrillidou have coedited "Library and Information Science, Interdisciplinary Perspectives: A Festschrift in Honor of Linda C. Smith," which comprises Volume 71, Issue 1, of Library Trends. The journal is published quarterly by Johns Hopkins University Press and is available by subscription both in print and online in Project MUSE.

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

This profile is part of the "PhD at 75" series celebrating the 75th anniversary of the iSchool's PhD degree program. Richard Urban (PhD '12) is a senior program officer with the OCLC Research Library Partnership.