Professor Emeritus Chip Bruce has authored a new book exploring the relationship between education and democracy. Democratic Education: Finding Hope in Challenging Times was recently published by Peter Lang. 

The iSchool is well represented in the 19th annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, which will be held on April 30 from 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. in the Illini Union. The iSchool is a Gold Sponsor of the symposium, which spotlights undergraduate research through oral and poster presentations, creative performances, and art exhibits.

The Association for Preservation Technology (APT) International has named Informatics PhD student Sepehr Vaez Afshar as a 2026 Student Scholar. Established in 1985, the APT Student Scholarship annually recognizes ten students worldwide whose work advances preservation technology through innovative and impactful approaches.

Adjunct Lecturer Zachary Stier has been selected for a 2026 I Love My Librarian Award. Honorees were recognized for their outstanding public service accomplishments. 

MSLIS student Christine Nguyen has been awarded a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) to study Japanese this summer. She is one of four University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students who received full scholarships to spend 8-10 weeks abroad and study one of 14 critical languages. The program is part of an initiative to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages and cultural skills to enable them to contribute to U.S. economic competitiveness and national security.

J.B. Bailey joined the iSchool on April 13 as coordinator of events. In this new role, he will be responsible for the development, management, and implementation of iSchool events with a cohesive brand identity. He will also provide support to the communications and marketing team.

iSchool faculty and students will present their research at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2026), which will be held from April 13–17 in Barcelona, Spain. The conference, considered the most prestigious in the field of Human-Computer Interaction, attracts researchers and practitioners from around the globe.

Imagine your favorite apps had a "digital twin" of your personality that actually grew up with you. Right now, most AI systems create a static snapshot of your interests. For example, a personal shopper who keeps recommending video games just because you bought one three years ago, even though you've long since moved on to hiking and cooking. To bridge this gap, Professor Dong Wang's team at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is partnering with Snap Research to build a "Profile Agent."

Research led by Associate Professor Masooda Bashir played a central role in one of the most significant consumer privacy settlements in recent history. 

Associate Professor Sarah Park Dahlen has been selected as one of six jurors for the 2026 Kirkus Prize, given annually in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers' literature. The prize is one of the richest in the literary world, with awards of $50,000 in each category.