Informatics students make climate data easier to visualize

Thursday, June 1, 2023

Climate change is a complex problem, and it's hard to grasp exactly how much carbon people are putting into the atmosphere. Policymakers who are trying to cut carbon emissions, however, need a good understanding of the current situation to help them make good decisions. A group of University of Washington iSchool Informatics students is helping to make the decision-making process a little easier. (Pictured above, from left) Akshita Gundavarapu, Emily Smokoff, Erica Gordy, Audrey Dennis and Meghan Munagala are working with EcoDataLab, a small start-up in Berkeley, California, to create visua

Informatics students show their work at research symposium

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Fifteen Information School students presented their research at the 2023 Undergraduate Research Symposium on May 19. They were among more than 1,000 students participating from across the University of Washington.  One of the research sessions, on Technology and Society: Privacy, Misinformation, Consent and Transparency, included an oral presentation from senior Informatics student Jasmine Mae Alindayu titled “Examining the Intersection Between Misinformation and the Courts: A Maricopa County Case Study.” With iSchool Ph.D. student Stephen Prochaska as one of her mentors, Alind

MLIS students correct the record on Black Panthers

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

“Education is liberation.”  Elmer Dixon, a Seattle Black Panther co-founder, shared these words of wisdom with Master of Library and Information Science students (pictured, left to right) Mei’lani Eyre and Dev Wilder as they worked to create a digital archive combating disinformation about the Black Panther Party.  The students partnered with Estelita’s Library, a social justice-focused community library and bookstore, to correct the media representation of the Black Panthers and preserve the legacy of everything the Black Panther Party did for the Seattle community. Fo

Informatics teams create hazing prevention tool

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

When students head to college, they may try joining clubs, auditioning for an a cappella group, trying out for the rugby team, or drawing comics with fellow anime lovers. Sam Martinez, a talented student-athlete from Bellevue who enrolled at Washington State University, hoped that joining a fraternity would lead to lifelong friendships. Instead, the pledging process included intense hazing and resulted in the 19-year-old’s death from acute alcohol poisoning. Sam’s parents, Hector Martinez and Jolayne Houtz, wanted to make sure that this kind of painful, avoidable loss would never happen

MSIM Capstone teams wrangle messy state data

Friday, May 26, 2023

Washington State’s open data portal provides citizens an abundance of free, high-value information, from interactive maps and crime statistics to budget proposals, campaign contribution sources, health provider credentials and electric vehicle registration numbers … or is that electric vehicles registration? That little “s” points to a messy problem. The portal, www.data.wa.gov, started as a largely decentralized, crowd-sourced, do-your-own thing collection site, with individual publishers at different agencies creating an estimated 1,200 tags to help people access government inform

MLIS students help library fulfill its wish list

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

When three iSchool students began their Capstone project to raise awareness about the Green Hill School Library, they hoped to see 200 donations of library materials. Currently, that number is 317, and it’s going to keep climbing.  This is the third year that the Green Hill School has sponsored a Capstone project to support the library through social media. This year, online Master of Library and Information Science students Ana Perry, Tasia Ross and Lindsay Tebeck wanted to create a social media presence that would make a lasting impact and support the vulnerable population the libr

Student outreach puts Informatics on high schoolers' radar

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Cynthia del Rosario has a sure-fire strategy for getting teens excited about Informatics: Listen to iSchool students. “I really believe in the student voice,” said del Rosario, the University of Washington Information School’s diversity programs advisor. “If our students have an idea, let’s turn it into something. It’s more impactful when the students say this is something we want.”  A few years ago, she listened to Informatics students who wanted to start a hackathon aimed at high school students from underrepresented populations. The result was not only a hackathon,

Annie Searle teaches last set of students to weigh the risks

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

The Silicon Valley Bank collapse in March wasn’t much of a surprise to Annie Searle, aka “The Risk Detective.” It had grown too big, too fast, and paid too little heed to warnings. “The bank took on more risk than anyone understood,” says the iSchool associate teaching professor, who watched a similar unraveling at Washington Mutual savings and loan bank, where she worked as a senior executive until its historic demise in 2008. “Everything at WaMu was growth: acquire, acquire, get bigger and bigger,” says Searle, who will be retiring from the classroom in mid-June after mor

iSchool alumni awards honor 2 academic librarians

Monday, May 8, 2023

A pair of alumni who are making their mark in academic librarianship are the recipients of this year’s iSchool Alumni Impact Awards. Distinguished Alumni Award recipient Michael Fosmire is a professor and head of Information Studies at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He earned his Master of Library and Information Science degree at the University of Washington in 1998, just before the Graduate School of Library and Information Science became the Information School. Fosmire came to the UW for graduate school to study physics, then pivoted and applied to earn his MLIS.

iSchool researchers release autism toolkit for libraries

Thursday, May 4, 2023

Libraries aren’t as quiet as they used to be, and librarians don’t go around shushing people, but patrons still typically expect everyone to go about their business silently and calmly.  That is not always easy and might be especially hard for an autistic child who might need to express their excitement or move around, giving their parents and caregivers a difficult choice: Go to the library and potentially face scorn from librarians and other patrons or stay away and have their kids miss out on storytimes and everything else the library has to offer for kids. Librarians don

iSchool's Teodorescu among '35 Innovators Under 35'

Monday, May 1, 2023

  Mike Teodorescu, an assistant professor at the University of Washington Information School, has been named one of MIT Technology Review’s 2023 “Innovators Under 35 Europe,” an award that honors “exceptionally talented young innovators whose work has the greatest potential to transform the world.” The recognition is highly competitive, with a committee of experts from leading universities and companies selecting 35 inventors, entrepreneurs, visionaries, humanitarians and pioneers to receive it. Teodorescu and the other recipients will be honored at a gathering in Ireland

Read-In celebrates Native American stories, art, music

Thursday, April 27, 2023

The Native American Read-In on April 16 brought people around the country together through the power of Native storytelling. People joined via Zoom to celebrate Native American storytelling, art, music and dance.   The Information School and literacy nonprofit Read-a-Rama jointly hosted the virtual storytime where Indigenous artists shared their books, illustrations and traditional art forms. The event, now in its second year, provides a community and space for Indigenous culture and talent to be celebrated.  Michelle H. Martin, the Beverly Cleary Professor for Children an

9 iSchool students honored among 2023 Husky 100

Monday, April 24, 2023

The University of Washington recognized nine students from the Information School for the 2023 Husky 100, awarded to undergraduate and graduate students making the most out of their Husky experience. The Husky 100, now in its eighth year, celebrates students who have demonstrated excellence inside the classroom and beyond, showing a commitment to a set of criteria that include leadership, engagement and community impact.  The iSchool honorees this year include seven students from the Bachelor of Science in Informatics program, one from the Master of Library and Information Science (

iSchool to partner on new UW Center for Environmental Health Equity

Monday, April 17, 2023

The University of Washington Information School will be a key partner in a new center that will address longstanding environmental and energy justice issues — from legacy pollution to energy security — in Pacific Northwest and Alaska Native communities. A $12 million, five-year cooperative agreement announced April 17 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will create the UW Center for Environmental Health Equity, housed in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS) in the School of Public Health. The iSchool will bring its expertise in In

Informatics grad among iSchool presenters at iConference

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Informatics alum Ria Antony presented research at this year’s iConference in Barcelona after completing their undergraduate degree from the University of Washington this past quarter. Antony was one of the youngest presenters at the iConference, an international gathering of scholars, researchers and practitioners in the information field representing iSchools from around the world.   Antony presented a paper titled “Understanding the Influence of Music on People’s Mental Health Through Dynamic Music Engagement Model.” Among the co-authors of the paper were Informatics