NEW FACULTY Dr. Heejun Kim joined the Information Science department as an Associate Professor and will focus on research, teaching, and service on data science and health informatics. He earned his Ph.D. in Information Science from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Prior to joining UNT, Dr. Kim worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Drexel University, where he taught core data science courses and worked on diverse research projects, including pharmacovigilance.
Dr. Sarah Ryan joined the Information Science department as an Associate Professor and to lead the law librarianship program. Dr. Ryan hails from Wesleyan University where she spearheaded research on the First Step Act, which focuses on crack cocaine resentencing. She was admitted to practice in Connecticut and will continue to draw on her legal experience to fill the role. Prior to practicing law, Dr. Ryan was the Empirical Legal Research Librarian and Head of Empirical Legal Research Services at Yale Law School. Ryan is a national expert on empirical legal research services, and has published articles in Law Library Journal, Trends in Law Library Management and Technology, Legal Reference Services Quarterly, and Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing. Dr. Ryan has presented on empirical services, survey design, and institutional data collection at the American Association of Law Libraries, Federal Court Librarians, and New England Law Library Consortium conferences. At UNT, Dr. Ryan will expand upon two other research projects: an analysis of court filings and media coverage of cases brought by transgender plaintiffs, and a 50-state and federal statutory survey of the term veteran. The latter project draws upon Dr. Ryan’s work as a veterans attorney, a specialty she learned at Quinnipiac Law School, where she earned her Juris Doctorate (J.D.), and as a staff attorney at Connecticut Veteran Legal Center, the VA’s first medical-legal partner.
Dr. Ting Xiao joined the Information Science Department in the Data Science concentration. She applies statistical and machine (deep) learning tools to extract meaningful information from large data sets including recent projects processing video, audio, and wearable sensors. Before joining the Department, Dr. Xiao was a research assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UNT, where she taught graduate-level courses in data science, AI, and software development and engaged students in a variety of research projects. She also serves as the liaison for the AI4All initiative at UNT and co-organizes the UNT AI Summer Research Program. In her prior Ph.D. and postdoctoral research role at Northwestern University, Dr. Xiao worked across three multi-institution international collaborations in Experimental Particle Physics for high-impact results.
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