Desiree McMillion has joined the iSchool as director of undergraduate affairs. In her new position, she will provide leadership and strategic direction for the School's undergraduate degrees, the BS in Information Sciences (BSIS) and BS in Information Sciences + Data Science (BSIS+DS).
Fifty-four iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Spring 2024. The rankings are released every semester, and results are based on the Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) questionnaire forms maintained by Measurement and Evaluation in the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning.
Jasmine Schreiber, a Leep (MSLIS online) student, has been awarded the Valerie J. Wilford Scholarship Grant for Library Education from the Illinois Library Association (ILA). The award is given to those in pursuit of education in librarianship, including classes, webinars, seminars, or conferences.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Assistant Professor JooYoung Seo a four-year, $459,000 grant to create inclusive learning environments and advance workplace equity for persons with disabilities in STEM fields. The project will build on Seo's work in developing open-source tools that can augment visual charts into touchable (braille), readable (text), and audible (sound) representations.
Jiangping Chen assumed the position of interim executive associate dean and visiting professor on August 16. In this role, she will work closely with Dean Eunice E. Santos to realize the iSchool's strategic goals and objectives. She also will provide leadership for the internal administration of the School, including oversight for the work of associate deans and assigned staff as well as the coordination of faculty affairs. Chen's position will become permanent following approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.
In his role as a computer vision engineer at Precision Planting, Jeremy Carnahan (MSIM '21) is part of a team that is making agriculture more productive and sustainable while reducing costs for growers.
Associate Professor Yun Huang has been named a 2024-2025 Linowes Fellow by the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research at the University of Illinois. The fellowship "provides exceptionally promising tenure-stream faculty with opportunities for innovation and discovery using the Cline Center's data holdings and/or analytic tools."
A project led by the Game Studies and Design (GSD) program in Informatics has been selected to receive the Illinois Global Institute New Approaches to International Area and Global Studies grant. The project, "Extending Capacities of Area and Global Studies to Shape the Future of Emerging Technologies," is the inaugural recipient of the two-year, $30,000 award.
Doctoral candidate Si Chen successfully defended her dissertation, "Designing Ethical Emotion AI-based Learning Experience among Ability-Diverse Users," on July 30.
