Doctoral candidate Kanyao Han successfully defended his dissertation, "Natural Language Processing for Supporting Impact Assessment of Funded Projects," on January 7, 2025.

The School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is pleased to announce the publication of Library Trends 72 (4). This issue, "Community Librarianship," discusses the evolution of the roles and responsibilities of libraries to support and serve the communities in which they exist. Anna Maria Tammaro and Crystal Fulton served as guest editors. All articles are open for public access.

Isiah Pettigrew started wrestling in his junior year of high school in Palatine, Illinois. He advanced in the sport quickly, placing fourth in his weight class at the state wrestling tournament in his senior year. He signed on with the Illini Wrestling team in 2020 as a freshman and has been wrestling throughout his academic career, which includes earning a bachelor's degree and beginning a master's degree at the iSchool.

The iSchool Alumni Association (ISAA) is seeking nominations for three distinguished awards. The awards are given annually at the iSchool alumni reception held at the American Library Association conference. The deadline for nomination is April 1, 2025.

Cadence Cordell was inspired by her undergraduate work experience to pursue a degree in library and information science. She followed in her mother’s footsteps by selecting the iSchool for her MSLIS. After completing a recent research poster presentation, she combined her scholarly pursuit with her hobby by sewing her fabric poster into a squirrel plushie.

Last semester, students in the Business Intelligence Group (BIG), the student consultancy group affiliated with Associate Professor Yoo-Seong Song's Applied Business Research class (IS 514), worked with Wismettac, a Japanese food distribution company. As a large global company with 47 offices in North America, Wismettac sought to study how data science and AI-based technologies could help the company's operations. 

Joshua Short knows firsthand the barriers to public library access that patrons living on modest wages experience. Having grown up in a self-professed "low-income environment," Short has made it his mission to reduce these barriers, such as library fines, inadequate transportation, and limited computer literacy.

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Haileleol Tibebu joined the faculty as a teaching assistant professor on January 1, 2025. His research and teaching interests include responsible AI, AI policy and governance, algorithmic fairness, and the intersection of technology and society.

Twelve iSchool master's students were named 2024–2025 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. MSLIS student Leslie Lopez graduated from the University of North Texas with a BA in psychology.

The School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign seeks nominations for the 2024 Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award. The deadline for nominations is March 15, 2025. The award is cosponsored by Sage Publishing.