Professor and Dean Eunice E. Santos was named a 2024 Women's History Month Honoree by the Illinois Office of Comptroller. She was recognized at a ceremony hosted by Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza on March 21 in Springfield. At the Women's History Month celebration, Santos and three other women trailblazers were honored for their achievements and contributions to the community.

A book edited by Associate Professor Sarah Park Dahlen and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, associate professor in the University of Michigan's Marsal Family School of Education, has received the Children's Literature Association (ChLA) Edited Book Award. The annual award recognizes the contributions of an outstanding edited collection of essays to children's literature history, scholarship, and criticism. 

A new program co-led by the Champaign-Urbana Community (CUC) Fab Lab aims to bridge and enhance the creative capabilities of local maker communities. The Champaign County Community (CCC) Maker-in-Residence Program was recently awarded a $29,293 grant through the Campus-Community Compact to Accelerate Social Justice initiative in the Office of Public Engagement.

Professor and Associate Dean for Research J. Stephen Downie and Professor Ted Underwood will present their research at the Digital Humanities International Symposium on March 13 and 15 in Japan.

Associate Professor Emily Knox has been invited to join the editorial board of The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion (IJIDI). The quarterly, open-access online journal is sponsored by East Carolina University and the University of Toronto and hosted on the servers of the University of Toronto Library.

Three of the twelve projects that recently received funding through the Chancellor's Call to Action Research Program to Address Racism and Social Justice are led or co-led by iSchool researchers. The program is a $2 million annual commitment by the University of Illinois to respond to the critical need for universities across the nation to prioritize research focused on systemic racial inequities and injustices that exist not only in communities but in higher education itself.

PhD student Kainen Bell has been selected as a 2024 Global Policy Fellow at the Institute for Technology and Society (ITS) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was one of ten researchers selected worldwide who share common interests in technology and its interfaces with law and who want to expand their knowledge about the Brazilian technological context. 

Associate Professor Rachel Adler and Teaching Assistant Professor Jill Naiman have been selected for the 2024 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grant Writing Series program in the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute (IHSI). Led by faculty who have demonstrated a history of success with NIH proposals, the biennial NIH Grant Writing Series is designed to prepare Illinois faculty to submit their first R01 or other individual investigator proposals to the NIH.

Assistant Professor Meicen Sun was selected as a 2024 Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) Emerging Scholar and presented her research at the PTC Annual Conference, which was held from January 21-24 in Honolulu, Hawaii. PTC is a global, nonprofit organization promoting the advancement of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the Pacific Rim. 

This “Spectrum Scholar Spotlight” series highlights the School's scholars. MSLIS student Janelle Lyons earned her BA in French and Francophone studies from the University of Florida and her MA in international affairs from The George Washington University.