Kyungwon Koh, associate professor and director of the Champaign-Urbana (CU) Community Fab Lab, has been awarded a $149,995 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS grant LG-256680-OLS-24). The award is part of the National Leadership Grants for Libraries program, which supports "projects that address critical needs of the library and archives fields and have the potential to advance practice in these professions to strengthen library and archival services for the American public."

Twelve iSchool master’s students have been named 2024-2025 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. Since 1997, the Spectrum Scholarship Program has promoted diversity among graduate-level students pursuing degrees in library and information studies through ALA-accredited programs.

For Paige Schulz (BSIS '22), the best part about working as a software developer for The Aerospace Corporation is "embracing constant change." She enjoys the fast pace in the tech world and in New York City, where she resides.

Stacy Clemmons joined the iSchool this month as academic advisor and coordinator of graduate affairs. In this position, she will provide academic advising and support for students in the MS in Information Management and MS in Bioinformatics programs.

The American Library Association (ALA) Council decided on July 23, 2024, that Sam Helmick (MSLIS '12) will be the 2024-2025 president-elect effective immediately. Helmick, who is community and access services coordinator at Iowa City Public Library, was recommended by the ALA Executive Board and confirmed by the Council.

iSchool faculty are studying ways to improve user experience, with a common goal of improving technology and applications for the needs of individual users. These researchers are working with diverse groups to gain feedback, and several current projects are focused on experiences for users with disabilities.

PhD student Puranjani Das has been selected as a recipient of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) SIG CMR Student Membership Award for the 2024-2025 academic year. She will receive a complimentary one-year membership in both ASIS&T and SIG CMR, a special interest group focused on classification and metadata research.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one million people have died in the past twenty-five years from a drug overdose. More than seventy-five percent of drug overdose deaths in 2021 involved an opioid. As opioid addiction and deaths have mounted over the decades, the business of making and selling prescription painkillers was hidden from the public. Thousands of lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies have since exposed the industry's deceptive practices. 

Doctoral candidate Jenna Kim successfully defended her dissertation, "Evaluating Pre-Trained Language Modeling Approaches for Author Name Disambiguation," on June 11, 2024.

A new master's degree program offered through Game Studies and Design, an Informatics program hosted by the iSchool, will provide professional training for students who are interested in working in video game studios, game-adjacent industries, or other businesses where game-related skills are increasingly in demand.