Belarde-Lewis (PhD) at Tribal Leadership Summit

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

UW iSchool Ph.D. student Miranda Belarde-Lewis, whose research focuses on knowledge visualization and transferal within Native and Indigenous communities through the creation of art, has been selected by the Native and Indigenous graduate students in advanced academia as their representative for the 2010 University of Washington Tribal Leadership Summit. This year's summit is centered around "creating additional partnerships between area Tribes and the University of Washington." As student representative, Belarde-Lewis will inform Tribal Leaders about current student activities and provide per

Woelfer (PhD) awarded Anita Borg Scholarship

Monday, May 3, 2010

Ph.D. student Jill Palzkill Woelfer is the recipient of a $10,000 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship will support her research with UW iSchool Associate Professor David Hendry regarding homeless young people and their interactions with information systems. This research will serve as the foundation for her dissertation. "We've been working with homeless young people for the last 32 months. We work with young people age 13 to 25, and we work with the nine different service agencies in the University District and the young people who come here for services," Woelfer said.

Board, faculty discuss tech impact on libraries at SPL

Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Seattle Public Library is hosting a free event on the morning of Saturday, May 8, about technology and its impact on the future of libraries. The iSchool's Master of Science in Information Management (MSIM) program chair and senior lecturer Michael Crandall is one of the panelists. Crandall is one of the principal investigators on a recent study examining public access to computing and its impact on individuals, families and communities. Technology and Its Impact on the Future of Libraries 10 a.m. Saturday, May 8 Central Library, Level 4, Room 1 Other panelists are Vanessa Fox, Deb

CNN covers implantable med device security work

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Tamara Denning's work on wireless security for implantable medical devices with UW faculty Yoshi Kohno and Alan Borning, Brian Gill (Seattle Pacific University), Bill Maisal (Havard) and UW iSchool Professor Batya Friedman is featured on CNN Tech. The story is part of CNN's extensive coverage of CHI, the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (www.chi2010.org/), held recently in Atlanta. Tamara Denning is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science and Engineering at the UW. Denning was interviewed at CHI and images from the prototypes are included in the story. Slides from Denning's

Dr. Pratt's work with cancer patients profiled by CNN

Thursday, April 15, 2010

CNN.com features a story about the work of UW iSchool Associate Professor Wanda Pratt and her team. The team has developed an online system called HealthWeaver. HealthWeaver includes a social networking tool, and aims to help cancer patients manage information about their care, get their questions answered and interact with others who can aid them in their treatment. CNN reporter Elizabeth Landau interviewed Dr. Pratt and Biomedical and Health Informatics Ph. D. student Meredith Skeels after their research presentations at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI, www.c

Chilana (PhD) one of five inaugural Facebook Fellows

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Today Facebook announced the first group of students in the inaugural year of its Facebook Fellowship Program. The program supports Ph.D. students in the 2010-2011 school year whose work "can help solve some of the biggest challenges facing the social web and Internet technology." UW iSchool Ph.D. student Parmit Chilana was one of five winners chosen out of many hundreds of applications from students at U.S. universities. In a Facebook blog post about the winners, Greg Badros wrote "We started this program because the academic community plays a central role in addressing many of our most ch

Alumna Bintliff new director of U of Texas law library

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Barbara Bintliff ('79), an alumna of the UW iSchool's Law Librarianship program who also earned a law degree at the University of Washington, has been appointed director of the Tarlton Law Library and the Jamail Center for Legal Research at the University of Texas. She has also been named the Joseph C. Hutcheson Professor of Law. Bintliff has been director of the law library at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 1989. She received the university's highest honor, the Robert L. Stearns Award, in 2008 for achievements in teaching, research and service. Bintliff received the master

Library Journal celebrates Beverly Cleary's 94th

Monday, April 12, 2010

Librarian turned Newbery award-winning author Beverly Cleary ('39) turns 94 today, and her birthday is celebrated across the country on National D.E.A.R. Day, with activities related to the Drop Everything and Read Program. The inspiration for D.E.A.R. Day came from a scene in Newbery honor book Ramona Quimby, Age 8, where Ramona gets to enjoy reading with her class. School Library Journal caught up with Cleary, who makes her home in coastal California, and collected some heartfelt birthday messages from some those in the world of children's literature. Among those sending birthday gree

New iSchool "Movers and Shakers" in Library Journal

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

UW iSchool alumni Georgia Lomax ('84), Eric S. Riley ('02), and Bernadette Salgado ('96) have all been named "Movers & Shakers," Library Journal's annual list of emerging leaders in libraries. Lomax is Deputy Director at Pierce County Library System (PCLS) in Tacoma, WA, where she focuses on providing outstanding customer service. She and her staff work to provide unified service to patrons, connecting local branches with care facilities and homebound individuals. "We focus on each service as a whole, not broken into components separated by where or how it is accessed or delivered, w

New Project Info Lit report travels radio, web

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Project Information Literacy (PIL) was the subject of several new news stories, following the release of findings about how students use Wikipedia for research purposes. Alison Head was interviewed on KUOW's The Conversation about Wikipedia use by college students across the United States. In the interview, Dr. Head discusses the results of surveys that included approximately 2800 student respondents. Heather Bosch of KIRO FM 97.3 also interviewed Head about the most recent PIL findings, as did KOMO Newsradio. In addition to these radio stories, PIL findings have also been generating

Dr. Desouza talks Russian cyberprotest at Harriman

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Assistant Professor Kevin C. Desouza will be presenting a paper at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. The paper, "Political Cyberprotest in Contemporary Russia," was co-authored with Volodymyr Lysenko, a doctoral student at the UW iSchool. The paper was accepted for the Etiology and Ecology of Post-Soviet Media Conference, to be held May 7-9, 2010. A description of the paper can be found on kevindesouza.net.

US Impact: 77 mil people rely on library computers

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Nearly one-third of Americans age 14 or older -- roughly 77 million people -- used a public library computer or wireless network to access the Internet in the past year, according to a national report released today. In 2009, as the nation struggled through a recession, people relied on library technology to find work, apply for college, secure government benefits, learn about critical medical treatments, and connect with their communities. The report, Opportunity for All: How the American Public Benefits from Internet Access at U.S. Libraries, is based on the first, large

Dr. Barzilai-Nahon talks networks, gatekeeping

Monday, March 22, 2010

Earlier this month at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California, a group of high-visibility researchers in the area of Network Theory convened to discuss the state of the science. Network Theory brings together philosophy, law, physics, mathematics, computer science, political science, communications and sociology, among other subjects, to investigate just how networks are shaping and being shaped by concepts like power, access, and data interchange standards. Dr. Karine Barzilai-Nahon of the UW Information School was one of 12 research

Kane (PhD) wins two new awards

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Shaun Kane, a Ph.D. candidate researching in the field of HCI, is one of 11 winners of a $10,000 scholarship from Google and Lime Connect, as well as the recipient of a $1,000 grant from the Foundation for Science and Disability. Kane received the awards for his research examining how mobile computing devices can help people with visual impairments interact with technologies. Kane says that the funds will allow him to work full-time on his dissertation research over the summer and will assist with other related expenses. He added that the awards will give him more freedom to work on his res

UW iSchool garners awards, recognition at CHI 2010

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI, www.chi2010.org/) is the largest annual Human Computer Interaction (HCI) conference in the world, and is considered the top venue for almost every type of HCI work. At this year's conference, which will be held in Atlanta, Ga., from April 10 to 15, the University of Washington iSchool had 10 paper and note submissions accepted out of 28 submitted - an acceptance rate of 35.7 percent, nearly twice the typical conference average of between 19 and 22 percent. The Design-Use-Build group (DUB) at the UW as a whole was 17 for 45, with 13