Last month a contingent from the iSchool at Illinois took part in a special dialogue with librarians in Russia. The second working meeting of the U.S.-Russia Dialogue on the Civic Role of Libraries in the 21st Century was held on May 14-15 in Suzdal, Russia.

PhD student Yingjun Guan will present his research at the Conference on Statistical Learning and Data Science / Nonparametric Statistics, which will be held June 4-6 at Columbia University. The conference brings together researchers in statistical machine learning and data mining from academia, industry, and government to discuss topics such as big data analytics, classification, learning theory, network analysis, and signal and image processing.

Doctoral candidate Steve Witt successfully defended his dissertation, "Making Internationalism Conscious: Libraries and the Transnational Struggle for Global Order (1911-1951)," on May 30. 

Each year, the School recognizes a group of outstanding students for their achievement in academics as well as a number of attributes that contribute to professional success. The following student awards were presented at the School's Convocation ceremony on May 13, 2018.

Doctoral candidate Dianah T. Kacunguzi will present her research at the 10th Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in in Libraries International Conference (QQML 2018), which will be held on May 22-25 in Chania, Greece.

Assistant Professor Jana Diesner is the program co-chair of the 3rd International Workshop on Social Sensing (SocialSens 2018). The workshop will be held on April 17 in Orlando, in conjunction with the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things Design and Implementation (IoTDI 2018).

iSchool master's student Mark McCarthy received the 2018 Alexis Wernsing Innovation Award at this spring's Innovation Celebration, hosted by the Champaign County Economic Development Corporation in partnership with the University of Illinois, Parkland College, and community sponsors. The award recognizes “an individual or team from the University of Illinois that has channeled their experience living with a disability into positive change through the creation of new products, environments, or protocols that enhance quality of life.”

Doctoral candidate E.E. Lawrence will present their research at the 2018 Popular Culture Association National Conference, which will be held March 28-31 in Indianapolis. Lawrence will give the talk, "Promoting Romance Reading and Improving Taste," during the Libraries, Archives & Museum area's "Embracing Scorned Literature" session.

The following iSchool faculty, staff, and students will participate in iConference 2018, which will be held March 25-28 in Sheffield, UK. The annual event brings together scholars, researchers, and information professionals to share insights on critical information issues. The theme of this year's conference is "Transforming Digital Worlds."

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