Each year, the UW graduate school awards the UW Presidential Dissertation Fellowship to Ph.D. students who have significant and original dissertation projects and who show a high level of scholarly promise. This year, Peyina Lin, a Research Associate in the Information School, was one of the recipients. "I think I nearly jumped out of my chair when I received the news," said Lin. "I am extremely grateful to my advisors, Drs. Michael B. Eisenberg and David W. McDonald, both from the iSchool, and Katherine Stovel of Sociology, for their high quality and constructive feedback and continuous support throughout the dissertation process."

The purpose of this award is to relieve graduate students of their teaching duties or other employment not directly related to the dissertation in order to allow them to devote their full time to finalizing the dissertation. Indeed, Lin said that the award will allow her to fully focus on her dissertation and produce publications directly related to her dissertation. Her research draws from survey, interview, and observation data that she collected in two U.S. high schools over 10-months (2009-2010) to investigate interrelated problems surrounding social or group categorization and the permeability of technology-mediated interactions across different group categories.

Lin pointed out that little is currently known about how the fluidity of group boundaries are related to the frequency of technology-mediated interactions, such as social media, email, and SMS. Therefore, her research will break new ground. In addition, Lin says that, "As an iSchool person, it is important that I connect findings to solid implications for information technology. I hope my study will provide implications for information diffusion across group categories and interventions aimed at reaching diverse youth."