Associate Professor Jingrui He was recently named a Senior Member of IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The organization is the world's largest technical professional society and serves professionals involved in all aspects of the electrical, electronic, and computing fields and related areas of science and technology.
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded Assistant Professor Jodi Schneider a $174,981 grant for reducing the spread of retracted research. When retracted papers are cited both before and after retraction, the scientific publication network inadvertently propagates potentially faked data, fundamental errors, and unreproducible results. According to Schneider, a retracted source paper concerning a fraudulent trial of blood pressure medication is still in the top 1% of most cited articles, with 930 citations in the abstract and citation database Scopus.
When universities began closing their campuses and going to online classes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, academic librarians were faced with questions about how those decisions would affect libraries and whether to close their doors or restrict access. "People are looking to best practices in the field, but also to what actions their colleagues and peers are taking and how they are thinking about this," said Affiliate Professor Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, professor and coordinator for information literacy services and instruction in the University Library.
For MS student Nicholas Digrispino, learning that he was selected for one of two research internships at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, was a dream come true. The internship is part of the Frank and Peggy Steele Internship Program for Youth Leadership Development, which provides hand-on training in research, photo archives, technical services, collections management, and more.
Most universities around the country have ended classroom instruction, told students to go home, and asked professors to continue teaching their courses online, to help stop the spread of the new coronavirus. Melissa Wong, an adjunct lecturer at the iSchool, has been teaching online since 2001. Her online courses include e-learning and instructional strategies and techniques. She recently gave two webinars about moving courses online.
Associate Professor Victoria Stodden presented her research at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshop, "Opportunities for Accelerating Scientific Discovery: Realizing the Potential of Advanced and Automated Workflows," which was held virtually on March 16-17.
The following iSchool faculty, staff, and students will participate in iConference 2020, which will be held virtually on March 23-27. The annual event brings together scholars, researchers, and information professionals to share insights on critical information issues. The theme of this year's conference is "Sustainable Digital Communities."
Tony Torres joined the School on March 5 as academic advisor and coordinator of undergraduate affairs. His duties include advising and supporting BS/IS students as well as managing student engagement, support, and outreach for the undergraduate program. He comes to the School from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, where he served for four years as an admissions counselor.
Associate Professor Jingrui He and Arun Reddy Nelakurthi, senior engineer in machine learning research at Samsung Research America, have coauthored a new guide to user behavior modeling. Their book, Social Media Analytics for User Behavior Modeling: A Task Heterogeneity Perspective, was recently published by CRC Press.
John Gough (MS '14) works for the University of Texas at Austin in the University Development Office (UDO). UDO is the fundraising arm of the university and oversees philanthropic giving from alumni, friends, foundations, and corporations totaling several hundred million dollars every year. As the senior executive director for advancement data operations and strategy, he oversees over twenty individuals across three teams responsible for gift and data processing, data quality, business intelligence, and predictive analytics.
