The Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute (IHSI), in partnership with the Center for Social and Behavioral Science and with support from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, has selected iSchool undergraduates Kaylee Janakos and Wondrous Jenkins as 2023 Community-Academic Scholars. The 18 scholars in this year's cohort represent eight colleges and schools and encompass a diverse array of fields of study, from community health to geography to economics.

PhD student Jamillah R. Gabriel will give the keynote address at the 17th Annual Digital Commonwealth Conference, which will be held virtually on April 11. Digital Commonwealth provides resources and services to support the creation, management, and dissemination of cultural heritage materials held by libraries, museums, historical societies, archives, and other cultural institutions in Massachusetts. The theme of this year's conference is "Facing the Digital Future: Addressing Systemic Issues in Cultural Heritage."

iSchool Research Scientist Ian Brooks and Associate Professor Kate McDowell are leading an international effort to combat health infodemics such as that which arose following the COVID-19 pandemic.

This "Spectrum Scholar Spotlight" series highlights the School's scholars. MSLIS student Estefania Eiquihua earned her bachelor's degree in English and English teacher education from Illinois State University.

The artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT can, among other things, generate essays and write computer code. Since being released to the public for testing late last year, it has raised concerns about students using ChatGPT to complete their homework and led some secondary public schools to ban it and college professors to change their course assignments. Professor Ted Underwood recently commented in Inside Higher Ed on how to view the technology's place in higher education. 

Fortunately for Chad Kahl, a PhD in political science wasn't in the cards. As a graduate student in political science at the University of Illinois, he wasn't certain that he was in the right field. His advisor, Professor Paul Diehl, suggested that he take a class in the iSchool to see if it was a better fit—and everything fell into place. Chad not only ended up earning his MSLIS degree, but mutual friends in the program introduced him to fellow classmate (now wife) Stephanie Davis-Kahl.

The PhD degree program at the iSchool celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2023. This profile is part of a special series featuring PhD alumni. Noah Samuel (PhD '21) is a user experience researcher at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

A paper coauthored by PhD student Yuerong Hu, HTRC Associate Director for Research Support Services Glen Layne-Worthey, Alaine Martaus (PhD '19), Professor J. Stephen Downie, and Associate Professor Jana Diesner, "Research with User-Generated Book Review Data: Legal and Ethical Pitfalls and Contextualized Mitigations," has received the Lee Dirks Award for Best Paper at iConference 2023.

Fifty-one iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Fall 2022. 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. Only those instructors who gave out ICES forms during the semester and who released their data for publication are included in the list.

Associate Professor Emily Knox has received the 2023 Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award from the Intellectual Freedom Round Table of the American Library Association (ALA). She was selected for the award, which recognizes the best published work in the area of intellectual freedom, for her book, Foundations of Intellectual Freedom (ALA Neal-Schuman, 2022).