Winfo co-presidents to serve as Informatics gonfalonieres at UW Commencement

Thursday, June 11, 2020

Graduating Informatics students Autumn Derr and Hayley Younghusband will represent the Information School as gonfalonieres — banner carriers — at the University of Washington Commencement ceremony on June 13. Gonfalonieres are selected by their program advisors and exemplify undergraduate education at the UW. At this year’s online ceremony, they will lead their school’s graduates during the commencement procession. Derr, who focused on data science and human-computer interaction and served as co-president for the student group Women in Informatics (Winfo), reflects fo

Informatics student finishes in top 3 in Microsoft Imagine Cup

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Informatics student Drew Gallardo and his group, Team Tremor Vision, finished in the top three of Microsoft’s Imagine Cup for their online platform that works to streamline care for early-onset Parkinson’s disease patients. Imagine Cup is a global technology competition that fosters technology solutions for the world’s most pressing issues. Gallardo and his teammates, Janae Chan and Robert Minneker, who are both bioengineering and computer science students at the UW, initially came up with their design for Dubhacks, an annual 24-hour collegiate hackathon held at the UW. After s

Cindy Aden brings library, corporate experience to iSchool faculty

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

In her more than two decades away from academia, Washington State Librarian Cindy Aden has worked with libraries large and small, urban and rural, public and private — including gigs at Amazon and Corbis. Her varied roles have included business analyst, director, tech-savvy innovator, researcher, metadata manager, networker and national influencer. “I have served libraries from outside the traditional framework and seen them from many different vantage points,” says the multifaceted iSchool ’87 alumna, who has also worked as a journalist at community newspapers. “Newspapers a

Our work must be a part of the change

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Like many of you, I have been glued to the news as protests swept across the country in response to repeated police violence. Amidst a pandemic and an economic crisis, I couldn’t have imagined we would be dealing with a crisis of race as well, and yet here we are, in a crisis of crises. The names George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor are now part of an ongoing American tragedy, a long list of Black people’s lives ended too soon at the hands of police. Ten days after Floyd’s death set off protests across the country, a recording surfaced of another Black man saying “I ca

DubsTech student group engages iSchoolers in first online hackathon

Monday, June 8, 2020

DubsTech, a UW student organization and technology community that is led by several Informatics students and whose events attract many iSchoolers, recently hosted its eighth successful user experience hackathon — the Protothon — the first to be held completely online. “I am extremely happy with the turnout,” said Zoshua Colah, Dubstech director and Informatics ’19 graduate, during the closing ceremony. “We had six different continents in total participate, with 300 participants and 81 team submissions.” Founded by Colah in 2017, the Protothon is intended to offer design

A message of solidarity from Dean Anind Dey

Friday, June 5, 2020

Dear iSchool students, The iSchool community recognizes that spring quarter 2020 has been extraordinarily difficult for a multitude of reasons, any one of which singularly, much less combined, poses great challenges for our students in focusing on their education. As a global community, we continue to face a series of crises, and we stand with all of you who are struggling to manage and respond to the pandemic, the sheltering, the horrifying displays of racial injustice after decades of inaction, and the resulting consequences to our health, safety and socioeconomic fabric. To provide

National Science Foundation awards CIP researchers $200,000 grant

Monday, June 1, 2020

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded grant funding for a proposal submitted by researchers at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP) who are aiming to better understand how scientific knowledge, expertise, data and communication affect the spread and correction of online misinformation about an emerging pandemic.  The approximately $200,000 in funding was awarded through NSF’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Research (RAPID) program. CIP principal investigators Emma Spiro, an assistant professor at the UW Information School, Kate Starbird, an asso

Nearly 1,500 attend online Capstone showcase

Sunday, May 31, 2020

A year like none other produced a Capstone Night like none other at the University of Washington Information School, which held a first-of-its-kind all-online project showcase on May 27. Instead of gathering around tables in the HUB, families, friends and sponsors gathered online to watch presentations from 62 teams who opted to participate, representing more than 200 students’ projects. Close to 1,500 people tuned in to watch on Zoom and YouTube. Attendees had their choice of three sessions at any one time. They could pop from room to room and learn about projects such as a real-tim

Q&A with Jacob Wobbrock on UW's new accessible technology research center

Thursday, May 28, 2020

Information School Professor Jacob O. Wobbrock is one of the co-directors of the University of Washington’s new CREATE center, along with Professor Jennifer Mankoff of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. CREATE, which stands for the Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences, is the culmination of a career in which Wobbrock has become one of the world’s foremost experts on accessible computing and human-computer interaction. Wobbrock’s research seeks to understand and improve people’s experiences of computers and informatio

UW launches CREATE research center, focused on accessible technology

Thursday, May 28, 2020

The University of Washington on May 28 announced the establishment of the Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE). Fueled by a $2.5 million inaugural investment from Microsoft, UW CREATE is led by an interdisciplinary team whose mission is to make technology accessible and to make the world accessible through technology. “We are proud to partner with the UW on their journey to build the CREATE center,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft. “This is the next step in a longstanding journey to empower people with disabilities wit

Informatics team helps nonprofit better serve Seattle's homeless

Friday, May 22, 2020

Through their Capstone project, a group of iSchool students is helping a Seattle-based nonprofit carry out its mission and put clothing, food, diapers and other necessities into the hands of families in need. The Informatics students, Autumn Derr, Lauren Smith, Tyler Van Brocklin and Hayley Younghusband, knew from the beginning they wanted to work with a nonprofit for their project. “We decided to reach out to local nonprofits because many of them don’t have the budget to develop their own apps and software,” Van Brocklin said. “Mary’s Place really stood out. The problem th

MLIS students' project opens doors for immigrants

Friday, May 22, 2020

It was a daunting idea: build a library from scratch, build it with no existing budget, and build it for immigrants and refugees speaking a multitude of languages, some struggling to master basic English skills. Still, when a staff member at the Tacoma Community House proposed the idea to iSchool MLIS student Seth Williams, he jumped at the opportunity. The library was a good fit for his iSchool Capstone project. More importantly, it lined up with Williams’ long-time passion for helping refugee and immigrant communities. “This is something I really care about, seeing newcomers to our co

MSIM students work to safeguard confidence in elections

Thursday, May 21, 2020

A dizzying whirlwind of threats, from disinformation campaigns to hacking and tampering with voting data, could undermine elections both in the U.S. and internationally. Democracy falls apart once doubt creeps in about whether elections are conducted fairly and openly. That’s why students in the University of Washington’s Information School are working with Microsoft on a project to restore voter confidence in the electoral system. “It's one thing to not vote, but it's a totally different thing that, ‘I'm not going out to vote because in the end my vote is not going to count,

MLIS student followed her passion, earned Nancy Pearl fellowship

Monday, May 18, 2020

Jacqui Howell’s path to the iSchool started at a challenging time in her life. She was laid off from her job in marketing and, unexpectedly, needed to decide what was next in her life. Her daughter had recently been born and she knew she didn’t want to return to her former career. It was a good time for a transition. She did a lot of thinking, reading and exploring as she looked for a career that would be personally and professionally fulfilling. As she explored the ideas, she began to realize that they all came back to one thing: building community. “I realized then, ‘You know w

Jill McKinstry, '87, named iSchool's 2020 Distinguished Alumna

Monday, May 11, 2020

When Jill McKinstry led the 2011-13 renovation of the University of Washington’s Odegaard Undergraduate Library, she had half the time it would normally take. To pull it off, the project needed a master organizer, someone who could find the right partners off campus and marshal the constituents on campus. Naturally, with McKinstry leading the way, it came in ahead of time and under budget, and it won rave reviews. McKinstry, the retired director of Odegaard and special assistant to the dean of UW libraries with a long list of professional accomplishments, has been named the 2020 In