According to Chandra Prabha (PhD '84), in traditional Indian culture, a student offers a gift in gratitude to the teacher who has played an important role in his or her life. This practice, called "Guru-Dakshina," inspired Prabha to make an estate gift to the University of Illinois in honor of the professors who most influenced her PhD studies—F. W. "Wilf" Lancaster and Linda C. Smith. Her gift will be split between the Wilf Lancaster Scholarship and the Linda C. Smith Doctoral Student Endowment Fund in the School of Information Sciences.

In his appointment with the University of Illinois Library, Christopher Bailey (MSLIS '17) provides collection development, reference, and information services to the School of Information Sciences.

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.

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.

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.

This profile is part of the "PhD at 75" series celebrating the 75th anniversary of the iSchool's PhD degree program. Vandana Singh (PhD '08) is the program director for data science at the College of Emerging and Collaborative Studies and professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

For Stephanie Orphan (MSLIS '98), the best part of her job as program director at arXiv is knowing that she is contributing to something meaningful that helps individuals as well as society. That was the same reason that she decided to earn a degree in LIS. "It seemed like a move that would lead me to gratifying, meaningful work, and that has turned out to be true."

Elisandro (Alex) Cabada (MSLIS '17), assistant professor at the University Library, emerging technologies and immersive scholarship librarian, and director of the Grainger IDEA Lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has been elected vice president/president-elect of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Cabada will become president-elect in July 2023 and assume the presidency in July 2024 for a one-year term.

The PhD degree program at the iSchool celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2023. This profile is part of a special series featuring PhD alumni. M. Cameron Jones (PhD '10) is a senior engineering manager at Google.