Members of Associate Professor Jana Diesner's Social Computing Lab will present two posters at the 11th Annual Maritime Risk Symposium, which is being held virtually from October 26-30. The symposium, hosted by the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI), will focus on maritime resilience and the impact of COVID-19 with regard to resiliency for future global upsets.

iSchool Affiliate Professor Clara M. Chu, director of the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs and Mortenson Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois, along with collaborators from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and the University of Texas at Austin, have received a Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The $208,142 grant will fund the IDEA (Innovation, Disruption, Enquiry, Access) Institute on Artificial intelligence (AI).

Doctoral candidate Rezvaneh (Shadi) Rezapour will present her research at the 2nd Annual Michigan Institute Consortium for Data Scientists in Training, a virtual event held from October 29-30. Rezapour is part of the Institute’s 2020 cohort, which includes researchers from 28 universities. The competitive program offers graduate students and postdocs the opportunity to participate in research talks, networking sessions, and mentoring opportunities.

The Department of Homeland Security has awarded Associate Professor Jingrui He a two-year, $319,568 grant to study how the risk of foreign influence on news media can be mitigated. Her project, "Towards a Computational Framework for Disinformation Trinity: Heterogeneity, Generation, and Explanation," will lead to a new suite of algorithms and software tools to detect, predict, generate, and understand disinformation dissemination. Hanghang Tong, associate professor of computer science at Illinois, will serve as co-principal investigator.

A paper authored by Informatics PhD student Donald Keefer and Assistant Professor Karen Wickett, "Adapting Research Process Models for the Design of Knowledge Engineering Applications," has received the Best Short Paper Award at the 2020 Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting.

For Julie Knutson, the iSchool's online MS/LIS program is "incredibly convenient," allowing her to continue authoring children's nonfiction while working toward her goal of becoming a school librarian.

"My first job out of college was at Temple University's Paley Library. After that experience, I kept returning to the idea of school librarianship. Really, the best I can describe it is as an unshakable drive to work in this space—with kids—to help them not just find books they love, but also to develop into discerning consumers of information, passionate researchers, and empowered makers," said Knutson.

A record fifteen iSchool master's students were named 2020-2021 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. This "Spectrum Scholar Spotlight" series highlights the School's scholars. MS/LIS student Krystal Madkins holds a BA in sociology from Bryn Mawr College and an MPH in epidemiology from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

When retracted papers are cited both before and after retraction, the scientific publication network inadvertently propagates potentially faked data, fundamental errors, and unreproducible results. Assistant Professor Jodi Schneider is working on reducing the spread of retracted science, receiving a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for this research.

iSchool faculty presented their research at the Digital Humanities Initiative at the University of Illinois Chicago conference, "Resources and Visibility in Digital Humanities," which was held virtually on October 22-23. A collaborative effort between UIC’s Institute for the Humanities and University Library, the Digital Humanities Initiative provides technical resources for humanities scholars at UIC. Sara L. Schwebel, professor and director of The Center for Children's Books, was a keynote speaker for the conference, and Teaching Associate Professors David Dubin and Judith Pintar served on the panel, Gaming and Transmediation.

iSchool faculty and students will participate in the 83rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), which will be held virtually from October 22-November 1. The theme of this year's conference is "Information for a Sustainable World: Addressing Society's Grand Challenges." The meeting is the premier international conference dedicated to the study of information, people, and technology in contemporary society.