Prose and poetry from Margarita Engle at Spencer Shaw Lecture

Friday, October 20, 2017

Author and poet Margarita Engle shared her thoughts on writing and her memories of Cuba during the iSchool’s annual Spencer G. Shaw Endowed Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 19, at the University of Washington HUB. Engle’s best-known works, including the Newbery Honor-winning “The Surrender Tree,” are written in verse. She noted how many great verse novels are produced by people from marginalized communities. “I believe this is because we are at a point in history where there is so much pain that we need to soften the blow of reality with musical language as we explore our own voices,

Give work to fight poverty, tech entrepreneur says at iSchool forum

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Tech entrepreneur Leila Janah is on a mission, and while speaking at an iSchool Research Symposium on Wednesday, Oct. 18, at the University of Washington, she encouraged everyone to join her cause. “I think that when we unleash human potential by giving work, we can change the world,” she told the audience at the HUB. Janah is the founder and CEO of Samasource, a nonprofit that works to move people out of poverty by connecting them with technology-related jobs. She discussed the concept of “giving work”: providing jobs in poor countries as an alternative to traditional forms of

Snopes fact-checkers visit 'Calling Bullshit' class

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

The iSchool’s “Calling Bullshit” class welcomed a pair of special fact-checking guests on Monday, Oct. 16. Snopes.com CEO David Mikkelson and co-owner Vinny Green joined the class to talk with students about how they work to separate fact from fiction online. Snopes is the internet’s leading fact-checking organization, attracting about 20 million visitors each month to answer questions such as “Did an NFL player burn an American flag in a locker room?” and “Is the Mandalay Bay security guard missing?” (The answer to both is “no.”) Mikkelson founded the site in 1994, w

Two iSchool students earn U.S. Bank cybersecurity scholarships

Thursday, October 12, 2017

Two students at the University of Washington Information School are among four recipients of U.S. Bank Cybersecurity Scholarships. The recipients include iSchool students Ryan Keller, a junior pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Informatics, and Yu Peter Wang, pursuing a master’s degree in information management. “The UW Information School is thankful for the generous support of U.S. Bank,” said Carole Palmer, the school’s interim dean. “Gifts such as these allow our students to have the best possible educational experience. Ryan and Peter exemplify the future information profess

'Calling Bullshit' makes an impact at schools across the country

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

When Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom quietly rolled out CallingBullshit.org in January, they hoped a few of their ideas would find their way into classrooms. At best, maybe the University of Washington would let them teach a class. “We would have been happy if a couple of our colleagues and friends would have said, ‘Cool idea, we should pass that along,’ said West, an assistant professor at the Information School. “We would have never guessed that it would get this kind of a response.” They certainly got a reaction. The website went viral; their spring class filled up in one minu

Amy Ko awarded $1.7 million for research to improve coding skills

Friday, September 29, 2017

Information School Associate Professor Amy Ko recently was awarded a pair of grants totaling more than $1.7 million for research into improving how developers, both novices and experts, learn programming languages, APIs, and problem solving skills. A $549,000 grant from the National Science Foundation will fund Ko’s research into ways to personalize instruction for people learning to code. With millions of people worldwide trying to learn to code, there’s a significant unmet need for instruction and meaningful feedback. As a result, many give up when they run into roadblocks. The projec

iSchool welcomes nearly 500 new students

Monday, September 25, 2017

Nearly 500 new iSchoolers are among thousands of University of Washington students who started classes on Wednesday, Sept. 27. The iSchool student body was expected to include 227 new Informatics students, 156 pursuing their Master of Library and Information Science degrees, 103 MSIM students, and 11 new doctoral students. Numbers are subject to change as Autumn Quarter proceeds. The iSchool welcomed newcomers with a series of “iWelcome Week” events, including an All iSchool Fair and several technology and career workshops. The new students joined more than 600 returning

UW funds Hala Annabi's research to help young workers with autism

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

A project led by iSchool Associate Professor Hala Annabi is among five winners of the University of Washington Population Health Initiative’s inaugural research grants. Annabi, along with Jill Locke of the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences and Gary Stobbe of the Department of Neurology, was awarded $50,000 to research “PREP for IT,” a program to help prepare young people with autism to land information technology jobs and succeed in the workplace. Based on their talent levels, young people with autism have lower-than-expected employment rates, Annabi said. Only 58 percent o

Internships give MSIM student hands-on experience with health data

Thursday, September 14, 2017

The health-care industry is always adapting to new technology. Examples include a HealthMap team using Twitter data to track cholera after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and a University of Pennsylvania study finding a correlation between the risk of heart disease and the expression of negative emotions such as anger, stress and fatigue in a county population’s tweets. Ding Luo, a full-time Master of Science in Information Management student, learned that hard work is involved in setting up the data for these kinds of studies. She interned with two health-care organizations this summer as

Jevin West, panel discuss fake news: 'Think more, share less'

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Four words from Information School Assistant Professor Jevin West provided the key takeaway from a Seattle Times LiveWire event Sept. 13 at the UW: “Think more, share less.” Training people to question the source and veracity of information is one of the keys to fighting the spread of fake news, West said. He was part of a panel discussion, “Fact vs. fake: Fighting back against fake news,” sponsored by The Times. Panelists spoke before a full house at Kane Hall, with thousands more watching a live feed on Facebook. West discussed the course he teaches with Biology Professor 

Nike internship keeps MSIM student running all summer

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Janani Kumar was already a Nike fan before she applied for its summer internship program. That, along with her undergraduate degree in computer science and courses in her Master of Science in Information Management (MSIM) program landed her the 10-week internship at Nike’s Beaverton headquarters. “I was always a fan of the brand and what they stood for,” says Kumar. “During the interview process they asked me about my favorite Nike campaign, Nike athlete and what I thought about the direction of the company.” Kumar, a full-time MSIM student, worked in the Global Consumer Kn

MLIS alumna tames Seattle Opera's archives as its first librarian

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

The Seattle Opera library was once a disorganized mess of artifacts from the institution’s five decades of productions. Emily Bolton Cabaniss, a 2014 graduate of the iSchool’s Master of Library and Information Science program, is working to change that. As the opera’s first librarian, Cabaniss is organizing and cataloging a trove of books, DVDs, musical scores, videotapes and even instruments, bringing a sense of order to the opera’s collections to help safeguard its history. The Seattle Times spent some time on the job with Cabaniss in the opera’s library, among the thousands

Lecturer Richard Sturman gives his classes a real-world feeling

Monday, August 28, 2017

Richard Sturman didn’t expect to be teaching at a university. The Australia native excelled in the corporate IT world for more than 20 years, helping companies build IT strategies to increase productivity, take advantage of new technologies and better connect them with their customers. “That is quite tricky for a lot of organizations to do. In addition to the technology challenges, there are many organizational and cultural challenges. People ask, ‘How do I change the job I’ve done for 30 years?’ And for many people and many organizations, it is a real challenge,” says Sturman.

iSchool's Bill Howe urges responsible use of data in 'smart cities'

Friday, August 25, 2017

With technology making our cities “smarter,” how smart can we be about securing our data and making modernized cities inclusive? Information School Associate Professor Bill Howe joined U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene and other regional leaders from the public and private sectors for a roundtable discussion on such questions around innovation and the Internet of Things. The hour-long meeting Wednesday on the UW campus brought together regional leaders including City of Seattle CTO Michael Mattmiller; Seattle Public Utilities CEO Mami Hara; Socrata CEO Kevin Merritt; and Microsoft Government S

A dean looks back: Harry Bruce reflects on iSchool's past, future

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Harry Bruce has been a professor with the University of Washington Information School since he was recruited in 1998 by former dean Mike Eisenberg. Bruce was named dean in 2005 and reappointed to the position in 2012. (You can read about Harry's career and leave a message for him on our tribute site.) As he looks forward to stepping down from the deanship in September, he answered a few questions about his work and the iSchool. As you end your tenure as dean of the UW Information School, of what achievements are you most proud? I feel proud that I have played some role in leading and mod