The PhD degree program at the iSchool celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2023. This profile is part of a special series featuring PhD alumni. Kirstin Phelps (PhD '21) is the associate site lead for the AbbVie Innovation Center.

The NSF-funded FABRIC project has completed installation of a unique network infrastructure connection, called the TeraCore—a ring spanning the continental U.S.—which boasts data transmission speeds of 1.2 Terabits per second (Tbps), or one trillion bits per second. Anita Nikolich, director of research and technology innovation and research scientist in the iSchool at Illinois, serves as co-principal investigator on the project.

PhD student Morgan Lundy won first place in the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) /Jean Tague-Sutcliffe Doctoral Student Research Poster Competition for her poster, "'Have a flare with me!': A content analysis, grounded theory, and collaborative design approach to disability storytelling on TikTok." For the competition, posters were judged on practical/theoretical significance, design and method of research, the student’s oral presentation, and the organization, clarity, and aesthetics of visual materials.

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has announced that its draft Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (CREC) Recommended Practice (NISO RP-45-202X) is available for public comment. The Recommended Practice is the product of a working group made up of cross-industry stakeholders, including Associate Professor Jodi Schneider, that was formed in spring 2022. 

BSIS student Anee Anisa discusses her practicum experience at the American College of Emergency Physicians, a professional organization of emergency medicine physicians in the U.S.

Associate Professor Maria Bonn has co-edited a new book on scholarly communication librarianship with Josh Bolick, head of the David Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication and Copyright at the University of Kansas, and Will Cross, director of the Open Knowledge Center at North Carolina State University. Scholarly Communication Librarianship and Open Knowledge was recently published by the Association of College and Research Libraries and is available as an open access edition.

MSLIS student and author Jessica Smith, who uses the pen name Jessika Fleck, has published a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, Murder at the Old Willow Boarding School. In her latest book, readers (as students in the academy for gifted children) must solve their own murder and stop the killer from striking again.

Informatics PhD student Daniela Markazi has been named the doctoral student winner of the 2023 Graduate Student Leadership Award from The Graduate College. The award recognizes two graduate students (one master's and one doctoral) who have exhibited outstanding services that has positively impacted the UIUC campus and wider communities.

Associate Professors Halil Kilicoglu and Jodi Schneider are part of a team of researchers who have received a three-year, $947,925 grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM) to improve upon a tool that clinicians, researchers, and systematic reviewers use to retrieve biomedical articles from bibliographic databases.

Samantha Smith joined the iSchool on October 2 as an office manager with the business and finance team. In this role, she will assist with purchases, financial transactions, and financial administrative maintenance.