Intersections
SPRING 2024
School of Information Sciences
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Published by iSchool Communications and Marketing. For more information or to submit story ideas, please contact brya@illinois.edu.
Dean: Eunice E. Santos
Editor: Cindy Ashwill
Managing Editor: Cindy Brya
Contributing Writers: Cindy Ashwill, Cindy Brya, Susan Mumm
Photography: Jen Anderson, Courtney Bay, Cindy Brya, Michelle Hassel, Amanda Nguyen, Thompson-McClellan Photography
501 East Daniel Street
Champaign, Illinois 61820
ischool@illinois.edu
ischool.illinois.edu
Phone: (217) 333-3280
People use information for analysis, inquiry, collaboration, and play—and in so doing, change the world. The iSchool at Illinois is dedicated to shaping the future of information through research, education, and engagement, both public and professional. Intersections highlights our current work in these areas as well as achievements of our students, alumni, faculty, and staff.
the cover:
Intersections Contents
On
The cupolas of the Illini Union overlook the trees of the Quad, which shows the first signs of spring.
Letter from the Dean
“ As stated in our strategic plan, we look forward to pursuing new intersections of teaching and research to enhance the quality of life for all individuals.”
Atthe completion of another academic year, I look back with pride on the accomplishments of our iSchool community. Together, we have educated students who will become future leaders, conducted research that pushes the boundaries of innovation, and benefited individuals and organizations through community engagement.
At our School’s convocation ceremony this spring, we celebrated the graduation of more than 500 students across all degree programs. These students have joined our network of more than 10,000 alumni, who benefit their local, national, and global communities. They work in a variety of settings, including public, academic, and school libraries as well as government, business, healthcare, and science.
Our faculty, staff, students, and alumni advance the field of information science, contributing to cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and data science. As highlighted in this issue of Intersections, our work contributes to the social good by promoting equal access to education, intellectual freedom, safeguards against online deception, and best practices in user experience. Through this work, our School’s impact touches people of all ages.
The iSchool continues to grow. In the last five years, student enrollment has roughly doubled. This growth has expanded diversity across many dimensions, enriching experiences inside and outside the classroom. Our School’s growth also includes the recruitment of outstanding faculty. In 2023-2024, we welcomed eight new faculty, bringing our total to sixtytwo, compared to a total of thirty in 2018. These faculty expand the scope of our teaching, research, and engagement; attract talented new students; and generate funding for projects— contributing to our current research portfolio of more than thirty million dollars.
As summer approaches, preparations begin for a new academic year. As stated in our strategic plan, we look forward to pursuing new intersections of teaching and research to enhance the quality of life for all individuals. Our alumni and donors contribute greatly to achieving these goals. In particular, I would like to highlight the longstanding commitment of Lionelle and James Elsesser, whose most recent gift generously supports the recruitment of exceptional faculty and our excellence in educating school librarians.
I hope you enjoy a productive summer and also find some time to rest and rejuvenate.
Sincerely,
Eunice Santos, Dean
New Faces—Spring 2024
Tara Batte
Assistant Director of Recruitment and Admissions
Supports recruitment and admissions for all degree programs in the School, with an emphasis on graduate programs.
April Carter
Assistant Dean for Student Affairs
Provides strategic direction and supports academic advising, career services, and enrichment of the student experience.
Julia Cross Research Development Coordinator
Supports faculty during different stages of the research process, assists with research-related programs and organizes the annual Research Showcase.
Ismini Lourentzou Assistant Professor
Focuses on multimodal machine learning, particularly the intersection of vision and language in settings with limited supervision, and its applications in embodied AI, healthcare, and other fields.
Todd Kato
Senior Admissions and Records Manager
Develops and implements innovative programs and processes for admission and records management across all the School’s degree programs.
Julie Owens
Senior Grants and Contracts Coordinator
Performs post-award administrative functions related to sponsored research projects.
Emily Valentine
Human Resources and Business Operations Associate
Supports the activities of business, finance, and human resources.
Wong appointed editor-inchief of Library Trends
Melissa A. Wong (MSLIS ’94) has been appointed editorin-chief of the iSchool’s quarterly journal Library Trends. Her experience as a librarian, library director, author, editor, instructor, and instructional designer will advance the breadth of the journal’s influence on practice and scholarship in the field of library and information science.
A longtime adjunct lecturer for the iSchool’s top-ranked MSLIS program, Wong teaches courses on the topics of instructional strategies, e-learning, reference and information services, academic librarianship, and the administration and management of libraries. Her expertise includes creating relevant and engaging online learning using authentic content and inclusive, accessible design. In 2012, she received the Campus Award for Excellence in Online and Distance Teaching.
Wong has greatly influenced the education of reference librarians and the field of reference librarianship. In 2022, she received the Reference and User Services Association’s highest honor, the Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award. She has contributed to several textbooks and authored Instructional Design for LIS Professionals (Libraries Unlimited, 2019).
Wong’s experience includes serving as an instructional design specialist for the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center; lecturer for the School of Library and Information Science, Simmons University; lecturer for the School of Information, San José State University; library director for Marymount California University; and librarian for the University of Southern California.
For more than 70 years, Library Trends has explored critical trends in professional librarianship through practical applications, thorough analyses, and literature reviews.
iSchool holds named lectures
Santos honored by Illinois State Comptroller
Professor and Dean Eunice E. Santos was named a 2024 Women’s History Month Honoree by the Illinois Office of Comptroller. She was recognized at a ceremony hosted by Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza on March 21 in Springfield. At the Women’s History Month celebration, Santos and three other women trailblazers were honored for their achievements and contributions to the community.
In presenting the award, the Comptroller said of Santos, “Under her leadership, the iSchool has seen unprecedented growth in student enrollment attracted by new and innovative degree programs and an expansion of diverse and pioneering scholarship and research opportunities.”
Santos is an accomplished scholar and researcher whose expertise includes computational social science with an appreciation for the social and human aspects of the information sciences. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and serves on the board of directors of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the Computing Research Association.
In March, Katharine Capshaw, professor of English and associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the University of Connecticut, delivered the 2024 Gryphon Lecture, “Grappling with Martin Luther King Jr. in Youth Literature: Sequence as Resistance.” Sponsored annually by the Center for Children’s Books, the lecture features a leading scholar in the field of youth and literature, media, and culture.
In May, Quinn Dombrowski (MSLIS ’09), academic technology specialist in the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and in the Library, at Stanford University, delivered the 2024 Windsor Lecture, “What Happens After the End? Crafting Sustainable Librarianship in an Age of AI.” The Windsor Lecture honors the career of Phineas L. Windsor, who served as director of the University of Illinois Library and iSchool from 1909 to 1940.
Katharine Capshaw
Quinn Dombrowski
Book co-edited by Dahlen recognized by ChLA
Abook edited by Associate Professor Sarah Park Dahlen and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, associate professor in the University of Michigan’s Marsal Family School of Education, has received the Children’s Literature Association (ChLA) Edited Book Award. The annual award recognizes the contributions of an outstanding edited collection of essays to children’s literature history, scholarship, and criticism. According to ChLA, eligible titles must “make a distinct or significant contribution to our understanding of children’s literature from a literary, cultural, historical, or theoretical perspective.”
Trainor receives the Karen Wold Level the Learning Field Award
In Harry Potter and the Other: Race, Justice, and Difference in the Wizarding World (University Press of Mississippi, 2022), Dahlen, Thomas, and 17 other scholars examine how the original Wizarding World in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series depicts diverse identities, social subjectivities, and communities.
Senior Lecturer Kevin Trainor was selected by the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) to receive the 2024 Karen Wold Level the Learning Field Award. This award honors exemplary members of faculty and staff for advocating and/ or implementing instructional strategies, technologies, and disability-related accommodations that afford students with disabilities equal access to academic resources and curricula.
Knox named Illinois Library Luminary
Associate Professor Emily Knox has been inducted as an Illinois Library Luminary. The Illinois Library Luminary Program, an initiative of the Illinois Library Association, recognizes those who have made a significant contribution to Illinois libraries. Knox’s commitment to intellectual freedom and to shaping the next generation of librarians has touched every library in Illinois.
Her research interests include information access, intellectual freedom and censorship, information ethics and policy, and the intersection of print culture and reading practices. She is a member of the American Library Association, the Black Caucus of ALA, the Freedom to Read Foundation, and the Illinois Library Association. She is a member of the advisory board for the African Centre of Excellence for Information Ethics and is the chair of the board of the National Coalition Against Censorship.
“He [Trainor] makes it known that his primary concern in his class is the success of his students. After speaking with him about my letter of accommodation, he said ‘unequivocally, if there is anything that I can do to help or support you, please let me know,’” the nominator wrote. “Kevin should be considered for this award because he is proactive in inclusion. He works diligently to aid all abilities in his class. He does not judge and is an amazing representative of the university.”
Trainor teaches courses in systems analysis and design, programming and system development, database design and implementation, web development, and project management. His approach in designing and conducting these courses gives students an equal opportunity to succeed. For his courses, he incorporates video lectures, hands-on tutorials, weekly practice assignments, online lab sessions, help desk support, and professional tools.
“Many technical courses are NOT designed for easy learning,” explained Trainor. “The design that I use makes these topics easier to learn. This benefits all students—some students with DRES accommodations might benefit more than most.”
He selected as 2023 ACM Distinguished Member
Jingrui He has been recognized as a 2023 Distinguished Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society. The 2023 inductees are longstanding ACM members who were selected by their peers for work that has advanced computing, fostered innovation across various fields, and improved computer science education. He, who represents the University of Illinois in this year’s class, was selected “for contributions to modeling data heterogeneity, connecting theory, methodology, and real applications.”
Her research focuses on heterogeneous machine learning, rare category analysis, active learning, and self-supervised learning, with applications in security, social network analysis, healthcare, and agriculture. Her recent funding includes a two-year, $600,000 grant from the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute to improve modeling climate change and its impact across multiple application domains. She is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).
Research
iSchool researchers work with diverse groups to improve user experience
Faculty in the iSchool are studying ways to improve user experience, with a common goal of improving technology and applications for the needs of individual users. These researchers are working with diverse groups to gain feedback, and several current projects are focused on experiences for users with disabilities.
“Good interface design is actually a social justice issue,” said Professor Michael Twidale, an expert in interface design and evaluation.
Twidale’s research examines issues that arise when people are in the process of learning something new. For one project, his group built a “confusometer” box for users to rank their confusion level as they learn.
“Typically, people don’t go through training courses, especially for applications we use in our nonwork lives—like those used for online banking, buying things, filing taxes, or booking medical appointments. Most of us do okay, but still we often get frustrated and confused,” he said.
Twidale also studies how people learn to use voice user interfaces, such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home.
“We are looking at the metaphors that people use implicitly and explicitly to make sense of a new device that they welcome into their home and their lives. Is it like a person? If so, what kind of person? A butler? A secretary? Or is it like something not human? We found that people use different metaphors for different use contexts,” said Twidale.
Metaphors are powerful for making sense of unfamiliar technology, but some metaphors are misleading and others can be negative in what they imply. According to Twidale, by understanding how people learn and what causes them to become confused, we can design new applications that are easier to learn.
Associate Professor Rachel Adler, whose research interests include human-computer interaction and accessibility, is working on designing mobile health applications for and with people with disabilities. In one project, her team is designing an app to empower cancer survivors with disabilities.
“User experience is a lot about acknowledging that we are
all different both in terms of
our physical
bodies,
our abilities, and our perception. ”
“We co-designed the application together with cancer survivors and found that they wanted an app that encompasses flexibility, engagement, socialization, and a minimalistic design,” she said. “Further, they also provided tips for improving accessibility, such as using larger font sizes and icons.”
Associate Professor Yun Huang’s group is dedicated to innovating AI-based solutions that cultivate a synergistic relationship between humans and machines.
“One of our projects involves designing emotion AI collaboratively with deaf and hard-of-hearing learners, rather than solely for them, to enhance their online learning experiences,” said Huang.
Her group is designing AI-based solutions that can help speech and language pathologists handle mundane tasks such as notetaking during therapy sessions, so that they can focus on student engagement. The researchers are also working on SafeRBot, a conversational agent system that enables community members to send safety incident reports efficiently.
“Our system [SafeRBot] not only reduces the barriers for people with diverse backgrounds and communication challenges to access reporting services but also improves the quality of incident reports. This is crucial for maintaining a safer community environment and building relationships between the community and safety service providers,” she said.
Associate Professor Yang Wang and his collaborators are building an online platform and process for users—particularly those with disabilities—to better engage them in governing AI systems.
Rachel Adler
Jessie Chin
Christopher Lueg
Yun Huang
Christopher Lueg
“We built an online platform and a process that can better engage these underserved users to influence the decisionmaking on AI behavior,” said Wang, whose research focuses on privacy and security. “This could improve user experience of these underserved populations because their preferences could be better incorporated into the systems.”
Working in the areas of accessible computing, universal design, and equitable healthcare technologies, Assistant Professor JooYoung Seo and his group want to make data science more accessible for blind and visually impaired individuals.
“Our team is working to add different encodings to data visualizations, such as spatial audio, tactile representations like Braille, and, recently, AI and large-language models (LLM) for graph auto-description,” said Seo. “By integrating various modalities, our goal is to enable blind and low-vision users to enjoy data representations alongside sighted people. Our tool makes it easier for them to understand and access related concepts.”
Assistant Professor Jessie Chin is studying the ways in which older adults interact with computers. One of her group’s projects demonstrated that older adults are more likely to attribute human characteristics to AI conversational agents,
rating the agents as being more usable, intelligent, and pleasant if they asked the questions instead of researchers.
“By understanding user experience, we will be able to create a more enriching interaction experience for older users and propose new opportunities to utilize technologies to support independence and well-being as we age,” said Chin, whose research focuses on health informatics.
Internationally recognized for his research in human computer interaction and information behavior, Professor Christopher Lueg has a special interest in embodiment—the view that perception, action, and cognition are intrinsically linked—and what it means when designing for others.
His interest in embodiment informs his work to advance outof-clinic and hospital medical consultations using mobile remote presence bots. The camera-equipped devices would visually connect caregivers with patients who are at another location. Not limited to health contexts, these devices could also offer people who cannot travel access to cultural sites, such as galleries, museums, and historical landmarks.
“User experience is a lot about acknowledging that we are all different both in terms of our physical bodies, our abilities, and our perception,” said Lueg. “To me, good usability is a small and very doable contribution to making the world a better place.”
Creating accessible makerspaces
In March, the Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab and iSchool hosted an accessibility workshop for Chicago-area public librarians. Participants learned tangible coding and electronics programs that the CUC Fab Lab and iSchool researchers have co-developed for blind and visually impaired teens. Associate Professor Kyungwon Koh, director of the CUC Fab Lab, and Assistant Professor JooYoung Seo are leading the project, which was awarded a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. In the photo, Seo demonstrates how to use a Swell Form Machine to create tangible materials that blind and visually impaired people can use to obtain information by touch.
JooYoung Seo
Micheal Twidale Yang Wang
LLMs respond differently based on user’s motivation
Anew study conducted by PhD student Michelle Bak and Assistant Professor Jessie Chin, which was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, reveals how large language models (LLMs) respond to different motivational states. In their evaluation of three LLM-based generative conversational agents (GAs)—ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Llama 2—the researchers found that while GAs are able to identify users’ motivation states and provide relevant information when individuals have established goals, they are less likely to provide guidance when the users are hesitant or ambivalent about changing their behavior. This research underscores the need for LLMs to integrate psychological theories and natural language processing to effectively promote preventive health behaviors, pointing to new directions for enhancing digital health solutions.
App helps older adults spot online scams
In 2021, more than 92,000 U.S. adults aged 60 and over reported losses of $1.7 billion due to online fraud, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. Deepcover, a free new app available for download, aims to equip older adults with the skills they need to safely navigate an increasingly complex digital world. Anita Nikolich, director of research and technology innovation and research scientist, serves as a co-principal investigator on the National Science Foundation grant that led to the app’s development. Dan Cermak, game studies coordinator in Informatics, used his experience in managing the development of successful commercial games to bring the app to fruition. Deepcover is part of a broader initiative known as the Deception Awareness and Resilience Training (DART) program, spearheaded by the Center for Information Integrity at the University at Buffalo.
New books contribute to scholarly knowledge
The Education of Things: Mechanical Literacy in British Children’s Literature, 1762-1860
University of Massachusetts Press, 2024
Authored by Assistant Professor Elizabeth Hoiem
Examines the rising popularity during Britain’s industrial revolution of children’s moveable books and toys, which parents and teachers used to integrate observation and tinkering into lessons on reading and writing; investigates the complex class politics behind the playful literature, toys, and learning aids created to teach reading alongside science, technology, and economics.
Scholarly Communication Librarianship and Open Knowledge
Association of College and Research Libraries, 2023
Co-edited by Associate Professor Maria Bonn
Addresses the economic, social, policy, and legal aspects of scholarly communication—how research is created, evaluated, disseminated, and preserved within the scholarly community; delves into topics such as open access, open data, open education, and open science and infrastructure.
iSchool doctoral research
The following students and recent graduates successfully defended their PhD dissertations in 2023-2024.
Qiuyan Guo
“Exploring Chinese Celebrity Fans’ Online Information Behaviors and Understandings of Their Practices”
Chair: Associate Professor Carol Tilley
Ruohua Han, “Exploring the Sharing of Autobiographical Memories and Memory Objects in Chinese Families”
Chair: Associate Professor Lori S. Kendall
Han is an assistant professor in the Department of Research
Methods and Information Science in the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver.
Yuerong Hu
“Complexities and Nuances of Online Book Reviews in Scholarly Research”
Chair: Professor J. Stephen Downie
Hu is an assistant professor in the Department of Information and Library Science of the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at the Indiana University Bloomington.
Nikolaus Parulian
“A Conceptual Model for Transparent, Reusable, and Collaborative Data Cleaning”
Chair: Professor Bertram Ludäscher
Julia Burns Petrella
“Educating Pre-Service School Librarians about Race, Racism, and Whiteness”
Chair: Associate Professor Carol Tilley
Petrella is an instruction librarian at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois
Courtney Richardson
“Art as Information: Re-reading Quicksand”
Chair: Associate Professor Kathryn La Barre
Richardson is a project archivist for Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research at Cranbrook Educational Community in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Smith authors paper for newly relaunched ARIST
Apaper by Professor Emerita Linda C. Smith, “Reviews and Reviewing: Approaches to Research Synthesis,” is one of seven papers included in the relaunch of the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST), a collection of peer-reviewed, comprehensive, and systematic reviews on topics relevant to information science. ARIST was published by the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) from 1966 to 2011 and relaunched in 2024.
In her paper, Smith highlights the evolution in forms of research synthesis, the diversification of users from peers to practitioners and policymakers, and the impacts of information technology. She also demonstrates how reviews and reviewing have evolved over the years. "While work remains to better understand the impact of review articles, reviews are now recognized as distinctive research contributions," Smith said.
Uplifting diverse communities through advocacy, art
Leep (MSLIS online) student Katherine
Witzig is an advocate, scholar, and artist. She is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and an advocate within the 2SLGBTQ+ and disability communities, drawing upon her personal experiences to amplify the voices of underserved populations.
Witzig serves as chair for the Oklahoma Library Association’s Committee of Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums and cochair of the Library of Congress Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Task Group for Metadata Related to Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.
At the 2024 NISO Plus conference, Witzig discussed her advocacy work for inclusive and culturally reflective metadata and her identity as it relates to her conception of librarianship. As a NISO Plus Scholar, Witzig received travel support and complimentary registration to participate in the conference.
“The purpose of the scholarship is to increase the diversity of attendees and contributors in the conference and in the organization itself. I look forward to this
professional development opportunity and the chance to connect and collaborate with others in different areas of the information industry than libraries,” she said.
Witzig holds a BA in English from the University of Central Oklahoma and BA in Spanish from Oklahoma City University. She decided to pursue an LIS degree because of the important role that libraries have played in her life.
“From checking out books to appease my voracious reading habit as a child to working or volunteering in libraries for over half of my life, libraries have been a place of comfort and challenge,” she said.
While Witzig could have attended an ALA-accredited library program in her home state of Oklahoma, she decided to earn her degree online through the iSchool’s Leep program. In doing so, Witzig could continue her work in the law library at Oklahoma City University. In the future, she would like to teach in an academic library setting and serve as a library consultant to help organizations do their best work.
“My primary interest is Indigenous librarianship and the incorporation of
Indigenous epistemologies into the library field,” said Witzig. “To me, this is an overarching interest that influences many different elements of the industry. Digital humanities and accessibility are other topics that I particularly enjoy.”
When she isn’t in class or at work, Witzig is an artist whose favorite mediums are beadwork and sewing. She teaches beadwork technique and artistry to classes of Native K-12 students in partnership with Epic Charter Schools in Oklahoma City.
“Beading is an incredibly cathartic experience—I feel present in the moment while still feeling connected to beadworkers before me and ones that will come after me. I was inspired to sew by my great-grandmother, and now I love making lots of fun and practical creations,” she said.
Check out Witzig’s Kitty Kat Arts & Crafts on Instagram (kittykatartsandcrafts) and Facebook (kittykatcrafty).
iSchool course leads to career with United Airlines
For Elysia Woodward (BSIS ’23), it was an introductory class, Exploring the iSchool with a Human-Centered Lens (IS 100), that kickstarted her career. Now an associate in the ECDLP (Early Career Digital Leadership Program) at United Airlines, Woodward found out about United’s internship programs and the ECDLP program through IS 100. She applied for an internship position in the summer of 2022 and received a return offer as an ECDLP associate.
“In my current rotation, I am working as a POC [proof of concept] project management associate at Airshop, United’s new innovation lab that aims to
disrupt the aviation industry with researching new technologies and conducting POCs,” she said.
Her favorite part of her job is exploring different roles within the company to find out which teams and tasks suit her the best. The exploration period is helping her develop skills in several different areas.
“I find it to be impactful that I am now leading teams in conducting research for new technologies that can be incremental to the development of the company,” said Woodward. “It seems small in scope, but knowing how large of an impact these technological developments can have on this growing company is crazy to think about!”
Help Desk provides tech support for iSchool community
For almost twenty years, the Help Desk has provided technical support to the entire iSchool community, including oncampus and online students, faculty, and staff. Graduate assistants answer users’ technical support questions in person at the Help Desk or by phone, chat, and email via a ticketing system. Help Desk graduate assistants also set up technology for classes and events and manage equipment loans.
MSLIS students Victoria Antwi, Audrey Bentch, Cadence Cordell, and Spring Olivares share their thoughts on what makes the Help Desk special—and a fun place to work!
What do you like best about working at the iSchool Help Desk?
Antwi: It feels like home. At the Help Desk, I don’t just work with colleagues but an entire family. The rate at which we help and connect with each other and the iSchool members is awesome—that’s why we are Team Awesome!
Bentch: Definitely being a part of the wonderful community that we have created at the desk and within the iSchool! I am surrounded by some of the most talented and enthusiastic people I have ever met, and I am thrilled to have them as coworkers and friends.
Cordell: The community! Everyone who works at the Help Desk is friendly and excited to help solve your tech issues. I love seeing my coworkers every day and catching up with them.
Olivares: The people that I work with. We encourage and support each other at work, in classes, and in life. We work to help so many people—from AV events to online tech chats and more. We also have decorations, candy, window drawings, Pets of the Week, and funky TikTok posts.
What is the most interesting/humorous problem that you’ve encountered?
Antwi: It’s interesting when I go to the 5th floor to help someone replace the printer’s toner, knowing the printer just needs an Awesome shake and is not actually low on toner!
Bentch: It has happened once or twice where instructors will have a sudden conflict and can’t make it to their Zoom class on time, so they call us, frantic, and ask us to launch their class for them. It’s always a bit stressful, but so much fun to greet the students and pretend to be an instructor for a bit!
Cordell: We sometimes get a call from a person who has issues running the app Zotero. The app will glitch, or the Chrome extension will stop working. As soon as the person calls the Help Desk, the problem fixes itself—that’s the kind of technomagic we have here at the Help Desk!
Olivares: The funniest problem we encounter is usually when naming the new equipment that we get at the desk. It always becomes a brainstorming session on where the equipment best fits in with our other loanable technology. While I can’t think of anything recent that I specifically named, I do have an example of how we name the equipment. When we don’t know what to name the equipment, we try to match it to the equipment. An example of this would be when we got an ergonomic keyboard, we named it Ernie the Ergonomic Keyboard. More recently, we got some Apple cords and chargers that we named Barbie, Ken, and other names from the Barbie movie.
Help Desk staff: (back row) Melissa Frazier, Gates Daniel, Mohammed Fatihi, Katherine Fata; (middle row) Victoria Antwi, Delia Kerr-Dennhardt, Audrey Bentch, Christina Sweeney; (front row) Wanheng Li, Kennedy Pasley, Spring Olivares
Get to know Mojgan Momeni and Ved Upadhyay
Mojgan Momeni (MSLIS ’09), Executive Director
Where do you work, and what is your role?
I am a co-founder and executive director at World Innovations Network (WIN), a 501c (3) nonprofit located in the San Francisco Bay Area that partners with the University of California, Berkeley AMENA Center for Entrepreneurship Development
Ved
to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
What do you like best about your job?
I love the opportunity to positively impact young lives through mentorship, handson training, and exposure to real-world entrepreneurial projects with our team at WIN. Seeing students transform their attitudes, confidence, and academic success is gratifying.
What do you see as the most critical impact of your work?
Training the next generation of leaders and problem solvers, our mission revolves around developing and training youth. We are committed to equipping them with the necessary skills, knowledge, and mindset to navigate the complexities of the contemporary world and come
Upadhyay (MSIM ’19), Senior Data Scientist
Where do you work, and what is your role?
At Walmart, I am part of the Digital Identity team that leads different initiatives, such as Walmart Plus, Walmart Connect, Data Venture, etc. My team’s responsibility is to understand the business problem set
and design a data science solution. My role also includes working with different teams inside Walmart and collaborating with various business stakeholders. My work involves building machine-learning models for various business use cases, putting them into production, and presenting results/recommendations to higher executives in Walmart.
What do you like best about your job?
I like working with different teams in Walmart and designing impactful data science solutions to serve customers in the best possible way.
Why did you decide to pursue a degree in IM?
UIUC is one of the most reputable institutions in the domains of computer science and data science. The MSIM
out as proactive contributors to positive change. We strive to instill a sense of social responsibility through innovative and immersive programs. Our approach emphasizes theoretical understanding and practical application, ensuring that the youth we nurture become architects of meaningful solutions.
How did the iSchool at Illinois help you get to where you are today?
The iSchool at the University of Illinois has shaped my professional journey, equipping me with a versatile skill set that has proven invaluable in navigating diverse career opportunities. One of the standout features of an iSchool education is the School’s commitment to preparing students for a wide array of paths. This adaptability has been a cornerstone of my success.
degree gives students the freedom to design their programs as they like, selecting from different electives inside and outside of the iSchool.
How did the iSchool help you get to where you are today?
The courses that I took helped me build my foundation in data science. I enrolled in a number of different courses related to machine learning and data science offered by the iSchool and other departments. My coursework, assignments, and projects not only helped me to understand theoretical concepts but also taught me how to apply what I learned in real-world problem sets.
iSchool alumni contribute to archives that shed light on opioid industry
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one million people have died in the past twenty-five years from a drug overdose. More than seventy-five percent of drug overdose deaths in 2021 involved an opioid. As opioid addiction and deaths have mounted over the decades, the business of making and selling prescription painkillers was hidden from the public. Thousands of lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies have since exposed the industry’s deceptive practices.
In 2021, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Johns Hopkins University (JHU) launched the Opioid Industry Documents Archive (OIDA). This digital archive of opioid industry documents advances understanding of the root causes of the U.S. opioid epidemic, promotes transparency and accountability, and informs and enables evidence-based research and investigation to protect and improve public health. It is being used by researchers, journalists, policymakers, community members, and other stakeholders. To enhance access to the archive, the OIDA team is developing resources such as a curriculum library, data toolbox, and image collection, which will be useful for educators, students, data scientists, and artists.
iSchool alumni are contributing to the OIDA project. Sally Ma (MSLIS ’07) is an OIDA collections archivist who has worked on the project since its early stages. Kevin Hawkins (MSLIS ’03) serves as OIDA’s program director and leads a team of archivists, faculty, researchers, and others at JHU who are collaborating with UCSF colleagues to maximize the accessibility, use, and impact of the archive. Thomas Padilla (MSLIS ’14) serves
on OIDA’s National Advisory Committee, a group of experts from a broad range of backgrounds and disciplines that advise on the archive’s development and sustainability.
Ma’s workload exemplifies the variety of initiatives that OIDA has undertaken. Ma leads the collections workgroup, overseeing the processes required to identify, transfer, process, and make public all documents in the digital archive’s collections. She also works on communications and metadata efforts, from developing research guides and tools that make the archive’s documents more accessible to annotating data sets for researchers such as a computer scientist creating a machine learning model for metadata generation.
“The possibilities are endless when it comes to digital archives! With such a massive collection like OIDA, I have to strategize and problem-solve on a bigger and more complex scale. Processes must be scalable, which has definitely been challenging. The team embraces innovation, and it’s exciting to see the intersection between archives and AI,” said Ma.
The three million documents in the archive are full-text searchable and include an array of relevant materials from many different companies, including company emails, memos, presentations, sales reports, budgets, audit reports, Drug Enforcement Administration briefings, meeting agendas and minutes, expert witness reports, and trial transcripts.
Ma feels satisfaction in seeing how her work is making a difference. She was the lead archivist working on OIDA’s McKinsey Collection, which was released in 2022.
“With such a massive collection like OIDA, I have to strategize and problemsolve on a bigger and more complex scale. ”
Sally Ma
“Seeing all the media coverage using documents from the archive has been very exciting, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Teen Vogue. Recently, a group of congressmen wrote a letter to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs raising concerns over reports that McKinsey & Company provided consulting services to the VA while simultaneously advising opioid manufacturers on how to increase sales to the VA. This is an example of how OIDA can provide evidence to support changes in policy and practice,” she said.
Although a relatively new project, OIDA’s success already has been recognized. In 2023, OIDA received the 2023 Archival Innovator Award from the Society of American Archivists for demonstrating “the greatest overall current impact on the profession or their communities.”
While she ironically had “zero interest” in archives as a Leep student, Ma said that her MSLIS education provided her with a solid foundation, and her coursework in web design and construction, instruction and assistance systems, and cataloging and classification have been especially helpful in her current work.
Visit the archive: industrydocuments. ucsf.edu/opioids
1960s
Anne Martel (MSLIS ’67) passed away on January 12, 2024.
1970s
Elise Henderson (MSLIS ’79) passed away on April 9, 2024.
1980s
Scott G. Burgh (MSLIS ’86) has successfully passed citizen initiative legislation to reduce research copy fees in Illinois Coroner Offices, signed by the governor as PA 103-73 in June 2023. He serves as president of the Chicago Genealogical Society.
Carol Leibiger (MSLIS ’85) has been promoted to professor in the University Libraries at the University of South Dakota.
Diane Zabel (MSLIS ’82) received the 2024 BRASS Excellence in Business Librarianship Award from the Reference and User Services Association, a division of the ALA.
1990s
Paul Bracke (MSLIS ’97) was selected as dean of the Wayne State University School of Information Sciences and University Libraries.
Stephanie Davis-Kahl (MSLIS ’98), university librarian at Illinois Wesleyan University, received the University Excellence in Service Award.
Dawn Rutherford (MSLIS ’97) has been promoted to regional manager at The Seattle (WA) Public Library.
Gennye Varvel (MSLIS ’94), library operations associate for the Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library at the University of Illinois, received a 2023 Library Outstanding Civil Service Staff Award. 2000s
Tamela Chambers (MSLIS ’05) has been promoted to district chief at the Chicago Public Library.
Adriana Cuervo (MSLIS ’05) assumed the role of director of Special Collections and University Archives at Rutgers University Libraries in January.
Lori Drummond-Cherniwchan (MSLIS ’06) has retired after serving as the teacherlibrarian at Auburn High School in Rockford, Illinois, for more than 20 years. She now teaches ESL part-time at Rockford University.
Eric Edwards (MSLIS ’06), interlibrary loan librarian at the Illinois State Library, was the Illinois Secretary of State Employee of the Month for March 2023.
Diana Eynon (MSLIS ’04) began her new role as a clinical assistant professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in January. She is the languages cataloging coordinator in the Acquisitions & Cataloging Services unit of the University Library.
Nell Fleming (MSLIS ’08, CAS ’14) is a librarian and archivist at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf in Delavan, Wisconsin.
Kate Fultz Hollis (MSLIS ’04) is co-editor of a new book, Clinical Research Informatics, Third Edition
Daniel Kraus (MSLIS ’05) has received a 2024 Alex Award from the American Library Association for his book Whalefall
Erin Mayhood (MSLIS ’02) has been appointed as chief executive officer of Mentor Collective.
Sarah McHone-Chase (MSLIS ’05), director of the University Library at Aurora University, was featured in the Illinois Library Association’s Member Spotlight for the week of January 8, 2024.
Elizabeth D. Muller (MSLIS ’08) serves as the lead metadata strategist in the MIT Libraries.
Lisa Nichols (MSLIS ’05) is director of the education library at the University of Kentucky.
John Repplinger (MSLIS ’02) authored and illustrated his debut middle-grade fantasy novel, Amara and the Giant’s Ring: The Blue Mist
Cathy Ritchie (CAS ’00) is a volunteer reader for Illinois Radio Reader, which was recently recognized by the International Association of Audio Information Services as Program of the Year in the Books on Air category for a book read by Ritchie.
Julia Warga (MSLIS ’03) is director of the library/university librarian for John Carroll University’s Grasselli Library and Breen Learning Center.
2010s
Kelsey Berryhill (MSLIS ’15) was promoted to state government records archivist at the State Historical Society of Iowa.
Anna Coats (MSLIS ’11) has been elected to the ALA APALA (Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association) leadership board.
Ana Lučić (PhD ’17), a research scientist at the Applied Research Institute at the University of Illinois, received a Digital Humanities Advancement grant.
Matthew Matkowski (MSLIS ’18), head of public services at the Palos Heights (IL) Public Library, was featured in the Illinois Library Association’s Member Spotlight for the Week for July 10, 2023.
Amanda McGrory (MSLIS ’18), archivist and collections curator for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, is featured in the American Libraries podcast, “The Wide World of Librarians in Sports.”
Nisha Mody (MSLIS ’17) has created a course called Trauma-Informed and Relational Care for Libraries.
Thomas Padilla (MSLIS ’14) delivered the opening keynote at NISO Plus 2024.
Catheryne Popovitch (MSLIS ’11), deputy director at the Illinois State Archives, is the 2023 recipient of the Mark A. Greene Emerging Leader Award from the Society of American Archivists.
Ted Quiballo (MSLIS ’17) was featured in the Evanston RoundTable on February 2, 2024.
Conrad Remington (MSLIS ’17) married Greg Remington (née Alvarez) on February 29, 2024.
Kimberly Shotick (MSLIS ’11), student success librarian at Northern Illinois University, was featured by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) as Member of the Week for the week of July 10, 2023.
Daniel Smith (MSLIS ’18) is now the genealogy librarian at Cook Memorial Public Library District.
Zack Stein (MSLIS ’16) has been appointed interim assistant dean of technical services at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He also recently received his Doctor of Education in educational leadership from the same university.
Kim Tipton (MSLIS ’18), reference librarian at the McHenry County College Library, was featured in the Illinois Library Association’s Member Spotlight for the week of March 11, 2024.
Steven Ward (MSLIS ’15) has started a new “dream job” as reference librarian for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois.
2020s
Josh Falconer (MSLIS ’22) was recently hired as a senior ontologist at Bloomberg in Princeton, New Jersey.
Pim Halka (MSLIS ’20) has a new role as the supervising reference librarian with JeffersonMadison Regional Library in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Dyamond Hutton (MSLIS ’21) has started a new job as a knowledge and research service coordinator at Mendelson P.C.
Eileen M. López (MSLIS ’20) serves as an adjunct faculty librarian for the City Colleges of Chicago.
Ashlynn Maczko (MSLIS ’21) has accepted the library director position at Great Falls College Montana State University.
Carolyn McMenamin (MSLIS ’22), social studies teacher at Centennial High School in Champaign, was named Teacher of the Week in the January 11, 2024, issue of The News-Gazette
Helen Salkeld (MSLIS ’22) has accepted a position as a school-age/teen librarian at Athens Drive Community Library in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Jessica Smith (MSLIS ’23) was featured in The News-Gazette article, “Meet the Champaign County Forest Preserve District’s new collections coordinator.”
Alumni named 2024 Movers & Shakers
TwoiSchool alumni are included in Library Journal’s 2024 class of Movers & Shakers, an annual list that recognizes 50 professionals who are moving the library field forward as a profession. Tarida Anantachai (MSLIS ’11) was honored in the Change Agents category and Lissa Staley (MSLIS ’01) was honored in the Community Builders category.
Anantachai is director of inclusion and talent management at North Carolina State University Libraries. According to her nominator, NCSU Communications Strategist Chris Vitiello, Anantachai “has transformed the libraries’ recruitment, interviewing, and hiring processes through the lens of equity and inclusion and extends that work into how our organization mentors and retains our talent.” As the coordinator of the NCSU Fellows Program, Anantachai recruits recent library school graduates for threeyear fellowships, observing that the candidate pools for the program have grown increasingly diverse. She fields requests from other campus and external units that are interested in making their own strategic recruitment changes. Anantachai is committed to examining how organizations measure retention, advancement, engagement, and their efforts to instill a culture of belonging, particularly for BIPOC and other marginalized colleagues.
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Office of Advancement and Alumni Relations
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501 East Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820
ischool-advancement@illinois.edu (217) 300-5746
ischool.illinois.edu/engage/alumni
Staley is a community connections librarian at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library in Kansas. Her “inreach” efforts include inviting local agencies into the library to assist patrons with mental health screenings, Medicaid and health insurance information, FAFSA applications, workforce support, family legal and emergency aid, GED classes, and small business mentoring. In collaboration with the United Way of Kaw Valley, she brought in a Community Navigator program, where social work interns and volunteers help residents navigate social services every weekday. Staley trains staff to use the WellSky Kansas Community Network to connect people to vital community resources. She helped add circulating Conversation Kits to the library’s collection, which contain decks of question cards and interactive games to spark dialogue on a variety of interests.
Tarida Anantachai
Lissa Staley
Elsessers donate $1M to the iSchool in support of faculty and school librarianship
Thanks to a new $1-million gift from Lionelle (BA English ’66, MSLIS ’67) and James (BS Business ’66, MS Business ’67) Elsesser, the iSchool will be better able to attract and retain outstanding faculty and educate future school librarians. Their latest donation will be directed to the iSchool Alumni Association Endowed Professorship Fund, Leigh Estabrook Faculty Development Fund, and Public School Licensure Program Fund.
The Elsessers are longtime advocates of the iSchool, giving generously of their time and resources to further its mission of teaching, research, and public engagement.
“The funds we chose to support were selected, in large part, because you cannot have a great program which attracts the best students without an outstanding and dedicated faculty,” said Lionelle. “And because children need to discover early that there is special joy and benefit in using their library.”
Lionelle is a retired iSchool adjunct assistant professor with a background in medical librarianship and instructional technology, who previously served as executive director of the Health Sciences Communications Association. She credits her MSLIS degree with giving her “a foundation for thinking.” When working on a problem, the skills she learned from the program helped her in understanding the question or issue at hand, identifying trustworthy resources, and coming up with a solution.
“In my case, it initially led me to focus on the role of the librarian in patient and family education, a neglected and worrisome concern for many librarians. That led to writing and teaching, which greatly expanded my professional interactions,” she said.
“A long time ago, I heard that there are three phases in life —first you learn, then you earn, and finally you return. ”
Lionelle Elsesser
As Lionelle’s career progressed, she moved from traditional library work into management of multidisciplinary staff and finally into the management of a professional association. The basic skills she learned in her MSLIS program provided a solid underpinning, and the “service mentality” that was part of the iSchool’s ethos was integral to her professional approach.
Now that she and James are able to give back to their alma mater, they enthusiastically and generously do so. This is their second $1-million gift to the iSchool.
“A long time ago, I heard that there are three phases in life—first you learn, then you earn, and finally you return. It’s as
simple as that—I’m in the returning part of my life. I do it out of gratitude for access to wonderful faculty, an amazing library, and a university that supported me with assistantships,” said Lionelle. “Giving back is an affirmation of the impact the iSchool has made in my life.”
“We are deeply grateful for the support that Lionelle and James have provided to our School over the years,” said Dean and Professor Eunice E. Santos. “Their gifts have contributed to the ongoing excellence of our degree programs and enriched the lives of our students and faculty. We are fortunate to count such loyal advocates among our alumni and friends.”
Dingle pays it forward through annual donation
When Susan Dingle (MSLIS ’75) was researching various career paths in high school, she came across a pamphlet about librarians. The pamphlet’s description of reference librarians piqued her interest and set her on a path that eventually led to her enrolling in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (as the iSchool was then known).
“I most liked doing research in the library and writing term papers,” Dingle recalled. “A careful reader of all parts of most scholarly works, I read acknowledgements as well as footnotes, and I was enamored of the books whose authors thanked librarians by name who had helped them complete their research.”
After completing her master’s degree, Dingle worked in government special libraries and academic libraries for the next several years. Later, she went back to school to work on a doctoral degree but left the program before finishing her dissertation. After teaching for several years in a couple of different
library schools, she returned to work in government special libraries and occasional work as an office assistant.
Dingle is grateful for the financial support that she received as a graduate student and is “paying it forward” to lessen the financial load of current students. She donates to endowment
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When you support iSchool students, you can change the course of someone’s life. Every gift, large or small, matters.
For more information about giving to the iSchool, or to make a gift, visit go.ischool.illinois.edu/give.
“
... I was enamored of the books whose authors thanked librarians by name who had helped them complete their research.”
funds in honor of her favorite instructors, such as Kathie Henderson, Don Krummel, and Linda Smith, as well as to the Curt McKay Student Need Endowment Fund because of the care and concern for students demonstrated by McKay, former assistant dean for student affairs.
“In one of the school’s newsletters from the 1970s, I remember reading about a graduate who donated to the school’s scholarship and support funds. I used to fantasize about someday doing that, too, myself. So here I am, doing it,” said Dingle.
School of Information Sciences Annual Fund
Supports students through scholarships, annual student awards, new technology, and conference travel.
Linda C. Smith Doctoral Student Endowment Fund
Provides support for doctoral students demonstrating financial need.
School of Information Sciences Scholarship/ Fellowship/Assistantship Fund
Provides scholarship assistance to students in the iSchool.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
501 East Daniel Street, MC-493
Champaign, IL 61820-6211
Serving as Illini basketball team manager provides “once-in-a-lifetime experience” for BSIS student
When the Fighting Illini men’s basketball team played in the Big Ten Tournament and NCAA Tournament this spring, BSIS student John Kramer was on the sidelines for each game—not simply as a fan but as a team manager. This is the second year that Kramer, a sophomore from Huntley, Illinois, has served in this role.
“My whole life I grew up watching Illinois basketball because of my mom (Laura Kramer), who went here and is the main reason I chose the U of I,” he said. “After high school, I knew I wanted to stay involved in basketball, even though I didn’t want to keep playing.”
As a manager, Kramer took care of the team’s laundry, helped with on-court player workouts, and watched footage of opposing teams’ games, analyzing the opposing players and coding/breaking down the film for the coaches.
“Working with the team has been an unbelievable experience. I am grateful that I get to share it with a great group of managers,” he said.
Managing schoolwork and basketball hasn’t been easy but has been worth it. Kramer “definitely” plans to serve as a manager again next year.
“My favorite memory from this basketball season was the entire post-season experience, starting with the Big Ten Tournament and ending with the Elite Eight. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I wouldn’t have passed up for anything,” he said.
