Hard work and perseverance are a given for those pursuing a Ph.D. in Information Science at the iSchool. This year's seven Ph.D. graduates celebrated their significant achievements and their new careers as faculty members and researchers during the iSchool's graduation ceremony in Meany Hall on June 15. 

iSchool Ph.D. Graduates (in order from left to right in the photo):

Jeff Hemsley is a computational social scientist, drawing on theories from sociology and communication to study social media. His current research looks at information flows in social media networks, with an emphasis on social movements and political events. He builds tools that collect, curate, visualize and analyze big data sets and employs social network analysis, econometrics techniques, and computational simulation methods in addressing research questions. His dissertation work looks at how the structure of networks influences the flow of information and how those flows, intern, alter the structure of those networks. Hemsley is a founding member of the iSchool Social Media Lab and co-author with Karine Nahon of Going Viral, a book published in 2013 that explains the nature of virality, how it works technologically and socially, and draws out the implications of this process for social change. Hemsley will be an Assistant Professor at the School of Information Studies, Syracuse University this fall.

Jill Palzkill Woelfer has many accomplishments to her credit. She was a 2011-2012 Fulbright Fellow to Canada, the 2012 recipient of the UW Graduate School Medal, and a 2010 Google US Anita Borg Memorial Scholar to name a few. Her dissertation investigated the role of music in the lives of homeless young people, aged 15-25. Her findings showed that music played a role in emotional control and regulation, in relationships with other people, and homeless young people engaged with music not only through listening, but also by singing, dancing and playing musical instruments. She created a website and touring exhibition from the collection of drawings from homeless youth. Woelfer is a user experience researcher for the Google Cloud Platform User Experience Team. 

Marc Dupuis is a lecturer with the Institute of Technology, University of Washington Tacoma, as well as the Director of Human Factors for the Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity. The main focus of his research is on understanding the information security behavior of home users, including issues related to decision making and the user experience. His dissertation examined the role of trait affect on the information security behavior of home users. This was done in part by developing and validating three new survey instruments, administering three large-scale surveys, and analyzing the data with partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling software. He serves as the Vice Chair of the User Experience Committee for the Identity Ecosystem Steering Group of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace initiative. Additionally, he is the Secretary, Academic Relations Coordinator, and Academic Advocate for the Rainier Chapter of ISACA. This fall he will be starting the Security and Privacy Research and Outreach Group (SPROG). The purpose of this group is to provide an environment for innovative research on issues related to security and privacy, as well as identify opportunities for outreach in these areas with the local community.

Eun Kyoung Choe  has a background in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Health Informatics, and Industrial Design. She studies how we can design technology to promote healthy behaviors. In particular, she explore ways to support self-monitoring practices such that people can collect personal data easily, learn their behavioral patterns, and develop positive changes for health. Her recent work looked at ways to improve people's sleep behavior and promoting physical activity. Choe interned at Microsoft Research, Intel Labs and Google, where she designed the entire user interface for Google Video Chat in 2008. She was selected as a Google Anita Borg Scholar in 2013 and will join the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State as Assistant Professor in August.

Elisabeth Jones is interested in digital information transitions, scholarly communication, and information policy. Her work has focused on debunking the persistent myth that the “serials crisis” of the early 1990s bears central responsibility for the declining fate of university presses, as rising serials prices crowded out monographic purchasing by academic libraries. Her dissertation compared the motivations, internal self-definitions, and initial implementations of four large-scale attempts to democratize access to book-based information, two historical and two contemporary. She works as a post-doctoral student at the University of Michigan Libraries, conducting research related to the future of scholarly communication in the digital world. 

Gifford Cheung studies how people play games to understand how technology can better fit in the fabric of everyday life. He uses qualitative methods to produce a naturalistic and nuanced understanding of play and technology and programs software to communicate his findings. In particular, he concentrates on playfulness as a human activity of great interest because brings attention to an aspect of life that is universal. He is continuing his work as a member of the Clinical Informatics Research Group. The CIRG designs, develops, and operates information systems to support research to improving individual and population health. CIRG systems securely manage health information for projects in the Clinical, Public Health, and Global Health Informatics domains. 

Luis Fernando Baron (not pictured) studies relationships between Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and social movements in the field of human rights and peacebuilding in Colombia. His research spans such diverse areas as memories, public opinion and audiences studies on violence and peace processes in Colombia, uses of media for social change, immigration and information, and alternative processes of organization for development. Since February, Baron has been the Director, Research Labs for the Department of Communication and Language in Universidad Icesi, located in Cali, Colombia.