MSLIS student Wendy Rein has been selected to receive the 2026 American Library Association (ALA) Century Scholarship.

iSchool researchers will present their work this week at the Engagement Scholarship Consortium's 2026 annual conference in Knoxville, Tennessee. The theme of this year's conference is "Changing Lives and Improving Society: Data-Driven Engagement and Innovation." ESC's goal is to work collaboratively to build strong university-community partnerships anchored in the rigor of scholarship and designed to help build community capacity.

Assistant Professor Jiaqi Ma has received a grant from the Amazon-Illinois Center on AI for Interactive Conversational Experiences. AICE is a collaboration between Amazon and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to develop intelligent conversational systems that demonstrate contextual understanding and emotional intelligence, allow for personalization, and can interpret non-verbal communication while being ethical and fair.

Adjunct instructor Jarrett Dapier's graphic novel, Wake Now in the Fire (Ten Speed Graphic, 2026), was selected by Book Riot as one of the best books of the first half of 2026 in both graphic novels and young adult novels categories. 

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.

MSLIS student Rasheed Adigun has been awarded the 2026 Helen Knoll Jira Scholarship from the Health Science Librarians of Illinois (HSLI). The award supports individuals pursuing education in library or information science in Illinois, especially those focusing on health science librarianship.

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.

Six master's students have been named 2026 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. The Spectrum Scholarships were established in 1997, and this year, the program received four times as many applications as there were available scholarships.