It is at this intersection of people and institutions that doctoral candidate Cheryl Thompson is conducting her research. Specifically, she explores how organizations develop data expertise and services to support science.

Master's student Alison C. Rollins is one of five recipients of a 2016 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship. Awarded by the Poetry Foundation, the fellowship is one of the largest awards offered to young poets between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one in the United States. The $25,800 prize is intended to encourage the further study and writing of poetry.

Jesus Espinoza has been quite busy so far during his time at the iSchool. In addition to his classes and graduate assistant position with the University Libraries, he is a member of the Student Advisory Board to the School’s Student Affairs office, vice president of the American Library Association (ALA) Student Chapter and co-chair of the group’s Lecture and Professional Development Committee, an ALA Spectrum Scholar, and an Association of Research Libraries Diversity Scholar.

Associate Professor Bonnie Mak and doctoral student Beth Strickland will travel to Barcelona, Spain, at the end of the month to speak at the joint conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science and the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (4S/EASST). The event, “Science and Technology by Other Means,” will be held at the Barcelona Internacional Convention Centre on August 31 - September 3.

Amanda McGrory is surprisingly calm when she talks about juggling her master’s degree classes, work at the iSchool's Help Desk, and race trainings with the University’s wheelchair track team. On top of these activities—which make up her normal routine—McGrory is preparing to travel to Rio de Janeiro to compete in the 2016 Paralympic Games.

For master’s student Catherine Mardula, librarianship is the family business. She’s following in the footsteps of her mother, an iSchool alumna, as well as her aunt and grandmother, all of whom are librarians. Catherine is pursuing special collections librarianship and—thanks to her Alternative Spring Break experience at the University of St. Andrews—cataloging.

Two iSchool master's students undertook placements at Oxford University this summer and presented their work at a seminar earlier this month. The placements were part of the Oxford-Illinois Digital Library Placement Program, an ongoing collaboration between Illinois and Oxford. Catherine Blauvelt (MS '16) and Alex Kinnaman spent six weeks at the Oxford e-Research Centre and Bodleian Libraries, respectively.

Assistant Professor Nicole A. Cooke and doctoral candidate Jeanie Austin will speak this week at the National Diversity in Libraries Conference, which will be held August 10-13 at the University of California, Los Angeles.

iSchool faculty, staff, and students will participate in the upcoming International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) World Library and Information Congress in Columbus, Ohio, on August 13-19. This annual conference brings together LIS professionals and students from more than one hundred and twenty countries and provides opportunities for networking and professional development.

Two iSchool master's students have been selected by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Committee on Diversity and Leadership to participate in the Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce (IRDW) as ARL diversity scholars: Siobhan McKissic and Nisha Mody.