A poster coauthored by Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek, PhD student Lo Lee, and Stephann Makri, senior lecturer at City, University of London, has been selected to receive the SIG USE Best Information Behavior Conference Poster Award at the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting, which will be held virtually from October 22-November 1. The award recognizes the best poster within the scope of information behavior, "broadly defined to include how people construct, need, seek, manage, give, and use information in different contexts."

Anita Say Chan, associate professor in the iSchool and the Department of Media and Cinema Studies, will present her research at the 23rd ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2020), to be held virtually on October 17-21. CSCW is the premier venue for experts from industry and academia to explore the technical, social, material, and theoretical challenges of designing technology to support collaborative work and life activities.

Anita Nikolich has joined the iSchool as director of research and technology innovation and research scientist. In her new position, she supports the iSchool's efforts to grow and expand research funding, tech transfer, and corporate relationships, and contributes to University-wide initiatives in big data science and computing.

Doctoral candidate Noah Samuel presented research on makerspace education at FabLearn 2020, which was held virtually from October 9-11. FabLearn brings together researchers, educators, and policymakers to discuss the maker culture and share best practices in digital fabrication in education, hands-on learning, and instructional tools. The theme of this year's conference was "Making as Resistance and Resilience."

The HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) has received a $500,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund a project that will develop new methods for creating and analyzing digital collections, with an emphasis on content related to historically under-resourced and marginalized textual communities. Principal investigators are based at the School of Information Sciences (iSchool) at the University of Illinois, Indiana University, and the University of Kansas.

Receiving a scholarship from the iSchool provided an emotional boost as well as a financial one for Luke Gregerson, a student in the online MS/LIS program.

Associate Professor and Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Emily Knox has been selected to participate in the 2020-2021 Building Pathways for Emerging Leaders Fellows program at the University of Illinois. Twelve professors were selected for the year-long leadership development program, which is designed for faculty members at the associate professor and full professor rank who demonstrate leadership potential in their current role.

Associate Professor Yang Wang presented his research at the 64th International Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), a virtual event held from October 5-9.

Terence Njekeu, a new student in the BS in information sciences (BS/IS) program, joined the iSchool because it aligned with his interests in data and analytic sciences and IT program management.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Assistant Professor Nigel Bosch a three-year, $987,015 grant to study potential bias in adaptive learning software through his project, "Collaborative Research: Exploring Algorithmic Fairness and Potential Bias in K-12 Mathematics Adaptive Learning." Bosch will observe and interview students using adaptive math learning software to discover what aspects of their identity are most salient in the adaptive learning context and then investigate possible algorithmic biases related to the identities that students express. Steven Ritter, founder and chief scientist at Carnegie Learning, will serve as co-principal investigator on the project, which also includes researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Illinois College of Education.