Online MSIM students get their hands on raw data for Capstone project

Wednesday, June 21, 2023

The transition from the academic world to a career is always going to come with a learning curve. The University of Washington Information School helps make that transition easier, however, by ensuring students get real-world experience while they’re earning their degree. That includes online Early-Career Master of Science in Information Management students like Tommy Huynh, Akeel Qazi and Jennifer Thao. Part of their real-world experience was a Capstone project to help libraries. They worked in partnership with Chris Jowaisas, a senior research scientist at the iSchool’s Technol

iSchool Ph.D. candidate Prerna Juneja awarded Graduate School Medal

Thursday, June 15, 2023

Information School Ph.D. candidate Prerna Juneja, advised by Assistant Professor Tanu Mitra, is the recipient of this year’s University of Washington Graduate School Medal for her research on misinformation. The Graduate School Medal is awarded to one doctoral candidate at the university each year to recognize a scholar-citizen who is tackling a challenge of significant social importance through rigorous scholarship. The winner is then selected through a highly competitive process. Juneja was honored at a ceremony in early June and recognized with a $5,000 award.  “I feel im

iSchool celebrates more than 400 graduates at Convocation

Monday, June 12, 2023

The University of Washington Information School honored graduating students from its undergraduate and graduate programs at Convocation on June 3 at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.  The ceremony began with opening remarks from Dean Anind Dey. He welcomed all to celebrate the Information School Class of 2023 and to honor all the individuals and communities who helped support the students through their academic journeys. Before introducing the keynote speaker, Dey encouraged the graduating students to have a sense of the possibilities that lie ahead.   “I hope today, on the cu

iSchool is a perfect fit for UW's Museology program

Monday, June 12, 2023

When I arrived at the Information School and heard about the University of Washington’s Museology master’s program, my first question was, “Wait, why isn’t it part of the iSchool?” After all, Museology has a lot in common with Library and Information Science. Like information scientists, museologists work to organize knowledge and curate an experience for patrons and users. Like librarians, museologists must consider how their choices address historical inequities and advance social justice. And like libraries, museums are part of the fabric of our communities; they are places whe

Students showcase skills and solutions at annual Capstone gala event

Friday, June 2, 2023

Eager crowds gathered at the University of Washington HUB and online for a hybrid, two-night Capstone Gala for the Information School. Over 150 student teams presented their Capstone projects from iSchool’s Bachelor of Science in Informatics, Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) and Master of Science in Information Management (MSIM) programs. It was the largest Capstone event in the Information School’s history. Dean Anind Dey said, “The annual Capstone Gala is one of my favorite events of the year. It’s incredibly exciting and inspiring to explore the projects, speak

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