Native American Read-In celebrates Indigenous creators

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Dozens of children and people from across the country joined via Zoom to celebrate the work of Native American creators and enjoy an afternoon of storytelling, poetry, art, music and dance.  The Native American Read-In, a virtual storytime where Indigenous creators shared their work, was jointly hosted by the Information School and the nonprofit Read-a-Rama. The inaugural read-aloud event on April 24, invited all to appreciate and learn more about Indigenous culture and talent, with nearly 200 people viewing on Zoom and more watching at libraries across the country.  Michelle H

iSchool students make up 9 of the Husky 100

Monday, April 25, 2022

The University of Washington recognized nine students from the Information School for the 2022 Husky 100, awarded to undergraduate and graduate students making the most out of their Husky experience. Now in its seventh year, the Husky 100 recognizes students demonstrating a commitment to a set of criteria including leadership, commitment and community impact.   The iSchool honorees this year include five students from the Informatics program, three from the Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program, and one Ph.D. student. The students will be given exclusive netw

Online MSIM transforms careers of first graduates

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Marquisha Hicks looked to get a promotion at her work. Kalyan Chakraborty wanted to learn more about information management.These mid-career professionals achieved all they hoped for — and far more — studying in the Master of Science in Information Management (MSIM) program at the University of Washington Information School.In March, they became the first graduates of the online delivery mode of the program. Hicks completed her coursework from her home in Sacramento, California, while Chakraborty (pictured at top) took classes online from his Redmond home.“I just feel so much more confid

Pandemic shows benefits of telehealth for certain patients

Thursday, March 31, 2022

Going to the doctor isn’t exactly most people’s idea of fun, but for people with motor-neuron diseases and others who use assistive technology to communicate, it can be much more than a minor inconvenience. Packing and transporting themselves and their gear can be an hours-long ordeal. When the COVID-19 pandemic came along, it prompted many health-care providers to embrace a helpful tool for people who have trouble moving and communicating: telehealth. After insurers temporarily relaxed their rules and covered visits over video, patients saved a great deal of time and fatigue, while pro

Hundreds of high schoolers pick up skills at MisinfoDay events

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Approximately 700 Washington high school students, teachers, librarians and other educators participated in MisinfoDay 2023 programs in March across three in-person events at the University of Washington in Seattle and Washington State University in Pullman and Vancouver, presented through an ongoing statewide partnership between UW’s Center for an Informed Public and WSU’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. The March 14 UW Seattle event, which saw news coverage from The Associated Press, GeekWire and Real Change Seattle featured workshop sessions on topics including how to spot

Winfo podcast helps connect Informatics community

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

It started as a way to keep people connected during the pandemic. Now in its second season, a podcast from Women in Informatics (Winfo) — “Community and Creativity within Informatics” — is a growing set of resources for the Informatics community at the University of Washington Information School.  “With the sudden shift to online school, it was hard to get to know people,” said Gisele Fox (pictured above, center), Winfo’s director of community efforts and creator of the podcast. “I thought with the Winfo podcast there is a way of possibly bringing people together, inter

Online feedback harms women's access to health care, research finds

Monday, March 7, 2022

Unmarried women around the world can face societal barriers in accessing reproductive health care. A study by Information School Ph.D. student Hyeyoung Ryu and Professor Wanda Pratt (pictured above, from left) reveals these barriers are largely rooted in cultural attitudes that foster the prevalence of microaggressions within social and online interactions.  In a paper published in the February issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Ryu and Pratt described how social media reveals and reinforces the suppression of women’s health care. Their researc

Batya Friedman gives keynote address at iConference 2022

Friday, March 4, 2022

UW Information School Professor Batya Friedman gave the North American keynote address at this year’s iConference, an annual gathering of faculty representing iSchools from around the world.  In the address, titled “Structure, Scale, and Time: iSchools, Artificial Intelligence, and which Future,” Friedman spoke about multi-lifespan design and how taking a structural, longer-term approach has fundamentally changed her thinking about design and design processes. Friedman introduced the constructs of structure, scale and time and spoke about her first substantive use of them

MSIM graduate wins Presidential Management Fellowship

Friday, February 25, 2022

When he graduated with his master’s in information management, Devin Barich wanted to find work that fulfilled him. He obtained a grant through the Seattle Water and Waste Initiative to build hygiene stations for people experiencing homelessness.   The experience made him want to do more for his community. That is why he applied for the Presidential Management Fellowship, which he won recently. Through the fellowship, he now has the opportunity to put his academic knowledge into practice in public service.  “Learning about the structure of government while working as a

18 iSchool students win UW Libraries scholarships

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Eighteen Information School students are among the 48 recipients of this year’s UW Libraries Student Employee Scholarship.  The recipients will each receive $1,000 through the scholarship, which is funded from a variety of sources including individual donors, the Friends of the UW Libraries, and 14 named scholarship endowments. One student, Shachi Sonar, is from the Master of Science in Information Management program. The remaining iSchool recipients come from the Master of Library and Information Science program: Erin Andreassi, Allyson Butzke, Olivia Duong, Mei’lani Eyre, Truc

In military and community, MSIM student driven to serve

Thursday, February 17, 2022

Around the world and back to the iSchool. Alan Butler’s academic journey has been anything but ordinary. Between two college degree programs, he served several years of active duty in the U.S. Army, including time abroad in Europe and Afghanistan.  Butler, an online graduate student in the Information School pursuing a master's in information management on the Early-Career Accelerated track, lives in Auburn and works as a management analyst for Pierce County alongside serving as a reserve officer at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.  Butler is driven by the desire to create safe s

Google’s ‘CEO’ image search gender bias hasn’t really been fixed

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

We use Google’s image search to help us understand the world around us. For example, a search about a certain profession, “truck driver” for instance, should yield images that show us a representative smattering of people who drive trucks for a living. But in 2015, University of Washington researchers found that when searching for a variety of occupations — including “CEO” — women were significantly underrepresented in the image results, and that these results can change searchers’ worldviews. Since then, Google has claimed to have fixed this issue. A different UW

Law Librarianship student organizes slice of UW history

Tuesday, February 8, 2022

The University of Washington School of Law has a rich history that stretches back to 1899, and much of that history is buried in boxes at the Gallagher Law Library in William H. Gates Hall. An iSchool student is working to organize it for the 21st century. Kristin Glover, who is earning a Master of Library and Information Science degree with a specialization in Law Librarianship at the Information School, is tasked with prioritizing documents for the law library’s digital archive, setting up a process for digitization, and starting to digitize items, all with the goal of making the inform

We believe in the power of computing for the common good

Monday, February 7, 2022

The ills of social media tend to grab the headlines, but the challenges we face on the technology and information landscape are even more pervasive. We experience them when our web searches result in bogus products or misinformation; when women and people from underrepresented groups experience exclusion and isolation due to the culture of their tech industry employers; or even when we park our kids in front of the television for a half-hour, then attempt to pry them away from it. Computing — which encompasses not only computer science, but information science, human-centered design, and

Informatics alum featured in Forbes' '30 under 30'

Friday, February 4, 2022

Evan Frawley tries to live by the guiding principle: “Don’t be afraid to take 100 shots, because at some point one of them is going to land.” For Frawley, one of his shots turned out to be a multimillion-dollar company. Frawley, who graduated from the Information School in 2018 with a degree in Informatics, was recently listed in Forbes’ “30 under 30” in its gaming category after co-founding the gaming start-up Kanga.  His desire to innovate and create new things is what initially drew Frawley to the world of coding. When he came to the University of Washington, Fraw