Annual iSchool Showcase celebrates student achievements

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

The Information School gathered on June 4 to celebrate student milestones from the academic year with more than 100 projects on display at the 2025 iSchool Showcase. Students from all five iSchool degree programs had the opportunity to present their work to family, friends, colleagues, employers and industry partners in the HUB ballroom.Judge John Chun of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington gave the keynote address to mark the beginning of the Showcase. Chun commended students for their hard work, and he emphasized the importance of information in society, saying it

MSIM team helps client improve health-care data

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Effective data management can be a challenge for any organization. In the health-care industry, the complexity of the information and critical need for privacy make it even harder. A group of Master of Science in Information Management students used the skills they’ve gained at the iSchool to help a company that works with health-care providers improve its data quality. Chance Landis, Riddhi Mistry, Kayvon Tari and Tanvi Save (pictured, left to right) did the work as their Capstone project, a chance to test their skills on a real-world problem. The team worked with Qualtrics, which

Despite headwinds, Amy Ko makes impact on computing education

Monday, June 9, 2025

Amy J. Ko received her introduction to computing when she first picked up a TI-82 graphing calculator in seventh grade. The University of Washington Information School professor was taking a pre-algebra class, and her teacher made the students input formulas into the devices.“I thought that was the most boring thing in the world and I was not interested in it at all,” Ko recalls. “But, after class, one of my classmates showed me a version of Tetris that his older brother had gotten onto his TI-82. “And I was interested in Tetris.”She used a mail-order catalog to buy a cable to c

University research is an investment worth keeping

Monday, June 9, 2025

The smartphone in your pocket, the car you drive and even the air you breathe are better because of university research. University researchers have made breakthroughs that produced modern computers and the internet; medical advances such as the technology behind the mRNA vaccines that saved many lives during the COVID pandemic; and discoveries in chemistry and physics that have advanced our understanding of the universe.Yet funding for research at the Information School and at universities across the United States has recently come under attack. Through executive orders, the Trump administrat

22 Informatics students show their work at research symposium

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Twenty-two Informatics students showcased their research at the 2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium. Held on May 16, the event – titled “Take Flight!” -- featured five poster sessions, three oral presentation sessions, a performing arts showcase and one visual arts and design presentation. With over 1,500 participants, the symposium celebrated the diverse research disciplines of students across the three UW campuses. For Informatics students presenting, the symposium is an opportunity to showcase the work they have been doing outside of the classroom. Informatics en

MLIS Capstone showcases a lesser-known part of U.S. history

Friday, May 30, 2025

The words “concentration camp” bring about disturbing images and evoke an emotional response. When people think of concentration camps, their minds are likely to turn to the Nazi extermination camps of World War II. However, many Americans might not think about the concentration camps that were within their own borders, incarcerating Japanese Americans.Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Roosevelt administration ordered the mass removal of Japanese Americans from their homes and into camps for the majority of the war. These camps were mainly located in the West and i

Students develop tool to track kudos among co-workers

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

In today’s fast-paced work environment, managers often look for tools to make their jobs easier. For someone managing a large team, wouldn’t it be nice to have a tool that regularly provides summarized feedback about each employee? Then they'd know who's raking in the kudos among co-workers. That’s a scenario five University of Washington iSchool students are bringing to life as part of their Capstone project, working in conjunction with a California-based company. Informatics students (pictured, from left) Mason Koh, Kai Andreic, Asad Jaffery, Joshua Williams and Vaibava Venka

Informatics team helps music streamer earn money for artists

Thursday, May 22, 2025

For a music creator, getting paid by listeners around the world should be as simple as a fan clicking “subscribe.” But for many artists in less developed countries, existing streaming platforms make that difficult or out of reach.An Informatics Capstone team, in partnership with their sponsor Joko, is working to change that. Joko is a reimagined streaming platform focused on increasing earnings for recording artists. Its payment-subscription model is designed to enable direct monetization for artists — a vision that Team DashJoin is helping bring to life.For their Capstone project,

MLIS team preserves a piece of radio history

Friday, May 16, 2025

From 1973 to 2011, the Evergreen Radio Reading Service served blind and print-disabled listeners across the state of Washington. Now, with its recordings stored in a fragile audio archive and at risk of permanent loss, a team of MLIS students has taken on the challenge of preserving its legacy.The Evergreen Radio Reading Service (ERRS) operated out of the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library (WTBBL). For 24 hours a day, ERRS read newspapers, stories, grocery ads and many other resources to the blind and print-disabled community. Since the program ended, its content has been stored in

iSchool’s Hiniker honored for societal impact at SIGCHI conference

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Human-computer interaction (HCI) researcher and iSchool Ph.D chair Alexis Hiniker has been honored with the prestigious Societal Impact Award at this year’s ACM SIGCHI conference.The Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI) gathered this year in Yokohama, Japan from May 25 to May 28, 2025. The largest group of professionals in the world of HCI, the conference is a moment to celebrate the work of technology designed to transform lives.Four other UW faculty members were celebrated for their contributions in research at

Public servant, startup founder honored with iSchool alumni awards

Friday, May 9, 2025

The 2025 Information School Alumni Impact Award recipients represent two different eras, but they share a common thread: working on the frontiers of the internet to make information accessible to more people.The iSchool Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes alumni who have made significant and exceptional contributions to the information field and their communities. This year’s honoree, Marcie Stone, earned her Master of Librarianship 1976 and spent her career in public service with the Army and the Department of Defense.“When I started out, I was hand stamping things in my little Army lib

Library Journal names iSchool professor, alum 'Movers and Shakers'

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Library Journal has recognized iSchool Assistant Professor Sandy Littletree and Master of Library and Information Science alum Nicola Andrews as 2025 Movers and Shakers in the “Change Agents” category. The annual list celebrates 50 individuals shaping the future of libraries and uplifting communities through transformative work. Littletree and Andrews were selected for their collaborative work “Information as a Relation: Defining Indigenous Information Literacy,” which explores Indigenous ways of knowing and challenges traditional frameworks in information science a

MLIS student inspired to build libraries for queer community

Friday, May 2, 2025

After earning her MFA, Caitlin Wheeler took a day job at Spokane County Library so she could pursue fiction writing at night. Eventually, though, she felt herself drawn to librarianship. “It seemed to offer a unique opportunity to combine my love of stories with my dedication to making a deeper, more lasting impact on communities,” she said. Now a third-year online Master of Library and Information Science student, Wheeler plans to apply the skills, knowledge, and connections from her degree to build a queer library in Spokane to support queer community members, especially queer youth

Ph.D. students show research skills in summer internships

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

As the school year winds down, many Ph.D. students seize the opportunity to put their expertise to work in industry settings, tackling research beyond the realm of academia. Several iSchool Ph.D. students have done just that, gaining valuable experience as research interns.  These internships provide Ph.D. students with opportunities to apply their research skills in real-world settings, offering them the chance to uncover new areas of research and deepen their understanding of existing ones. Ph.D. candidate Bin Han explored his research interests in the applications of large la

MSIM student learns to leverage data to help communities

Friday, April 25, 2025

After graduating from the UW with a B.S. in Public Health and a B.A. in Communication, Alexandria (Ali) Lo landed a fellowship tracking many diseases, including COVID-19, Mpox and bird flu. There, she worked alongside data scientists who helped her team process genomic (DNA and RNA) data. She helped coordinate with clinicians, epidemiologists and legal teams to devise patient care plans such as quarantines. The experience with the Association of Public Health Laboratories and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stirred her interest in learning more about data work. She found pu