iSchool faculty and students will present their research at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2021), which will be held virtually from May 8-13. The conference, considered the most prestigious in the field of Human-Computer Interaction, attracts researchers and practitioners from around the globe. The theme for CHI 2021 is "Making Waves, Combining Strengths."

Patients with compromised health conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, are at enhanced risk of contracting COVID-19. Unfortunately, these patients are also hesitant to take the COVID-19 vaccine because of their condition. A new project, led by Assistant Professor Jessie Chin, aims to develop an accessible, generalizable, and efficient digital health solution for promoting vaccination among vulnerable populations.

The iSchool is pleased to announce that JooYoung Seo will join the faculty as an assistant professor in August 2021. He is a PhD candidate in the Learning, Design, and Technology program at Pennsylvania State University and also an RStudio double-certified data science instructor and accessibility expert certified by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP).

A project to increase the health data literacy of youth has received funding through the University’s Extension Collaboration Grant Program. Assistant Professor Rachel M. Magee will lead the project, "Health Data Literacy Ambassadors," with Associate Professors Catherine Blake and Jana Diesner serving as co-investigators. Funded through the Office of the Provost's Investment for Growth Program and University of Illinois Extension, the grant supports research and partnerships that address critical issues in five key areas: food, economy, environment, community, and health.

Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek and William Aspray, senior research fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, have co-edited a new book, Deciding Where to Live: Information Studies on Where to Live in America, which was recently published by Rowman & Littlefield. Their book explores major themes related to where to live in America and shows how "changes in media and information technology are shaping both our housing choices and our understanding of the meaning of personal place."

A poster coauthored by Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek, PhD student Lo Lee, and Stephann Makri, senior lecturer at City, University of London, has been selected to receive the SIG USE Best Information Behavior Conference Poster Award at the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting, which will be held virtually from October 22-November 1. The award recognizes the best poster within the scope of information behavior, "broadly defined to include how people construct, need, seek, manage, give, and use information in different contexts."

Doctoral candidate Noah Samuel presented research on makerspace education at FabLearn 2020, which was held virtually from October 9-11. FabLearn brings together researchers, educators, and policymakers to discuss the maker culture and share best practices in digital fabrication in education, hands-on learning, and instructional tools. The theme of this year's conference was "Making as Resistance and Resilience."

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.

iSchool Associate Professor Masooda Bashir and Informatics PhD student Tanusree Sharma have published a paper, "Use of Apps in the COVID-19 Response and the Loss of Privacy Protection," in Nature Medicine. In the paper, they examine how digital surveillance used to contain the spread of COVID-19 may impact privacy rights.

Assistant Professor Jessie Chin has received a $389,810 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to identify false information about the HPV vaccine and model its impact on risk perceptions.

PhD student Clair Irwin (MS '16, CAS '18) has a personal connection to her research on the embodied information behaviors of people with diabetes.

People are being asked to change their behavior to help contain the spread of COVID-19. Dean Eunice E. Santos and PhD students Suresh Subramanian and Vairavan Murugappan studied the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the social phenomena and events that influenced whether people in Mexico decided to cross the border into the U.S. at various times during the outbreak. Their work provides insights that can help public health officials plan for events such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. They talked with News Bureau arts and humanities editor Jodi Heckel.

Ian Brooks, iSchool research scientist and director of the Center for Health Informatics, and Sebastian Garcia Saiso, director of the Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health for the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), presented their preliminary social media analytics research on COVID-19 at the World Health Organization (WHO). 

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.

Jessie Chin is an assistant professor in the iSchool and the principal investigator of The Adaptive Cognition and Interaction Design (ACTION) Lab. Her research aims to advance knowledge in cognitive sciences regarding evolving human interaction with the contemporary information technologies and translating theories in social and behavioral sciences to the design of technologies and interaction experience to promote health communication and behavior across the lifespan. 

Anita Say Chan, associate professor in the iSchool and the Department of Media and Cinema Studies, has been awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant to spend three weeks at Javeriana University in Bogota, Colombia. During her visit, which will take place in May 2020, Chan will lecture on feminist data methods and give a workshop on community data.

PhD student Lo Lee will present work from Associate Professor Kyungwon Koh's research group at the Connected Learning Summit 2019, which will be held October 2-5 at the University of California, Irvine. The mission of the summit is to "fuel a growing movement of innovators harnessing emerging technology to expand access to participatory, playful, and creative learning." The program includes presentations and workshops ranging from speculative design, to game walkthroughs, sharing work in progress, and research panels.

Associate Professor Masooda Bashir will present her research on trust formation in human-agent collaboration at the Intelligent Systems Conference (IntelliSys) 2019, which will be held September 5-6 in London. The conference, which brings together researchers and practitioners from diverse fields, focuses on areas of intelligent systems and artificial intelligence and how they apply to the real world.

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Visiting Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek will transition to the role of assistant professor, effective August 16.

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Yun Huang will join the faculty as an assistant professor in August 2019, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. She is currently an assistant professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University.