Our School is grateful for talented and dedicated staff, who contribute greatly to our teaching and research excellence. This "Get to Know" series highlights our staff, sharing their friendly faces and stories of professional success.

The iSchool Alumni Association (ISAA) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2020 ISAA awards: Safiya Noble (MS '09, PhD '12), Distinguished Alumna Award; Thomas Padilla (MS '14), Leadership Award; and Meg Edwards (MS '04), Distinguished Service Award.

Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek and PhD student Jamillah Gabriel will present their research at the Information Behaviour Conference (ISIC 2020), a virtual event held from September 28-October 2. This conference is devoted to information-seeking behavior and information use, focusing this year on analytical investigations of the connection between information research and information behavior and practices.

Charles Hargis Davis ("Charlie," "Chuck," "Dave"), former dean and professor emeritus in the iSchool at Illinois, died peacefully at his home in Bloomington, Indiana, on September 24. He was 82 years old.

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 Amanda He holds a BA in biology with a minor in chemistry from Kenyon College.

PhD student Clair Irwin will participate in the Society for Scholarly Publishing’s 2020 Virtual Seminar, New Directions in Scholarly Publishing: Community, Collaboration, and Crisis, which will be held September 30-October 1. The seminar will explore new ways for publishers and industry leaders to support peer-reviewed research and academic publishing, especially during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

PhD student Ly Dinh, doctoral candidate Shadi Rezapour, and Research Manager Chieh-Li "Julian" Chin will participate in the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC), which will be held virtually from September 29-October 3. Produced by AnitaB.org and presented in partnership with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), GHC is the world's largest gathering of women technologists. 

Fifteen iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Summer 2020. The rankings are released every semester, and results are based on the Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) questionnaire forms maintained by Measurement and Evaluation in the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning.

Doctoral candidate Jooho Lee successfully defended her dissertation, "Using Grant Applications to Measure the Evolution of Collaborative and Non-Collaborative Research," on September 21.

PhD student Courtney Richardson has been selected as a Publicly Active Graduate Education (PAGE) fellow by Imagining America (IA), a consortium that "brings together scholars, artists, designers, humanists, and organizers to imagine, study, and enact a more just and liberatory 'America' and world." Fellows are selected for their creative and intentional commitment to public engagement and unique approach to engaged scholarship.