Doctoral candidate Paige Cunningham will speak at the Coursera Partners Conference, which will be held March 6-8 at Arizona State University. The theme of this year's conference is "Learners First: Beyond the Campus Walls." Participants will discuss best practices for creating top-quality, in-demand, and affordable online learning experiences.pai

Master's student Natalie Leoni is the winner of this year's Graduate Student Exhibit Contest and the C. Barbara Mueller Award for Excellence in Exhibition Design, sponsored by the University of Illinois Library. Her exhibit, "Mapping Fiction," showcases holdings from the University Library's collections, displaying literary maps from books such as Winnie-the-Pooh and The Hobbit. The exhibit highlights how maps like these were created and disseminated.

Master's student Paige Dhyne likes to connect people with information. It was one of the reasons that Dhyne, who hails from Grand Rapids, Michigan, decided to study LIS after earning a dual bachelor's degree in film/video production and writing from Grand Valley State University. While initially attracted to the iSchool because of its number-one ranking, she became convinced that Illinois was the perfect fit for her after getting to know the iSchool staff, faculty, and students at a visit day last spring. 

iSchool master's student Lisa Morrison won the award for best paper at BOBCATSSS 2018, which was held in Riga, Latvia, from January 24-26. The BOBCATSSS Symposium is organized each year by library and information science students from European universities who plan and implement both the content and the management of the conference as a part of their studies.

Connect with iSchool faculty and staff next month at the 2018 ALISE Annual Conference and the ALA 2018 Midwinter Meeting in Denver. ALISE 2018 will be held February 6-9, and ALA Midwinter will be held February 9-13. A reception to honor the Kansas City Public Library, recipient of the 2017 Downs Intellectual Freedom Award, will take place on Saturday, February 10, from 5:30-7:00 p.m. in Ellingwood Rooms A and B at the Crowne Plaza Downtown Denver. The award is sponsored by the iSchool and Libraries Unlimited.

MS student Mark McCarthy has received the Stan Yellott Scholarship from the Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group. The award provides financial support to students interested in pursuing studies related to information technology. McCarthy, an information management student, is certified in information accessibility, design, and policy and has earned several certificates in cybersecurity.

As a child, MS/LIS student and author Brittany Jacobs was banned from her local library for not returning anything on time. Now, Jacobs works in the children's department at the Naperville Public Library, writes and illustrates children's books, and helps librarians create educational programs for youth.

Doctoral candidate Jeanie Austin successfully defended their dissertation, "Libraries for Social Change: Centering youth of color and/or LGBTQ and gender non-conforming youth in library practice," on November 6.

Nandana Nallapu is learning about data science, both through her work in the classroom and as an intern for the John Deere Technology Innovation Center at the University of Illinois Research Park. With a bachelor's degree in information technology from SRKR Engineering College in India, she is building on her academic success by earning an MS in information management (MS/IM).

Master's student Jiayi Liu has received two awards to attend the CIKM 2017 International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, which will be held on November 6-10 in Singapore.