Professor Catherine Blake was selected from faculty across the University of Illinois System to participate in the 2026 cohort of the University of Illinois Faculty Entrepreneurial Leadership Program. The program seeks to foster a vibrant university entrepreneurial ecosystem by supporting faculty innovators in realizing the commercial and/or social impact of their research and scholarship.
Several iSchool faculty, staff, and students will participate in the Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy (TPRC54), which will be held from Sept. 25–26 in Washington, DC.
Three iSchool faculty are named on four National Leadership Grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS): Professor Jiangping Chen; Sara Schwebel, professor and director of the Center for Children's Books (CCB); and Assistant Professor Kahyun Choi.
Dong Wang, professor and associate dean for research, has received a grant supporting his work in the areas of social sensing and intelligence and human-centered AI.
Teaching Assistant Professor Nitin Verma is among the 20 faculty from the University of Illinois System who were selected for the 2026–2027 cohort of the Public Voices Fellowship. The program is part of a national initiative led by The OpEd Project to help experts from underrepresented groups to be positioned as public thought leaders in their fields and contribute to the national dialogue around important issues.
A research team including professors Jingrui He of the School of Information Sciences and Hanghang Tong of the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has received a Phase II award through the US Department of Energy's Genesis Mission to develop a model for electric grid expansion.
As online platforms and other tech interfaces grow increasingly necessary for education, employment, and healthcare, digital accessibility has become an important computing competency.
The iSchool is proud to announce the following appointments: Masooda Bashir has been promoted to professor; Madelyn Sanfilippo has been promoted to associate professor with indefinite tenure; John Weible has been promoted to principal lecturer; and Elizabeth Wickes (MSLIS '16) has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Professor Jingrui He is one of five professors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to be recognized as a 2026 University Scholar. The program honors faculty excellence and provides $15,000 to each scholar for three years to enhance their academic careers.
Assistant Professor Jiaqi Ma has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award to develop new tools to understand how individual components of training data affect the behavior of large artificial intelligence systems.
