iSchool's Teodorescu among '35 Innovators Under 35'

Monday, May 1, 2023

  Mike Teodorescu, an assistant professor at the University of Washington Information School, has been named one of MIT Technology Review’s 2023 “Innovators Under 35 Europe,” an award that honors “exceptionally talented young innovators whose work has the greatest potential to transform the world.” The recognition is highly competitive, with a committee of experts from leading universities and companies selecting 35 inventors, entrepreneurs, visionaries, humanitarians and pioneers to receive it. Teodorescu and the other recipients will be honored at a gathering in Ireland

Read-In celebrates Native American stories, art, music

Thursday, April 27, 2023

The Native American Read-In on April 16 brought people around the country together through the power of Native storytelling. People joined via Zoom to celebrate Native American storytelling, art, music and dance.   The Information School and literacy nonprofit Read-a-Rama jointly hosted the virtual storytime where Indigenous artists shared their books, illustrations and traditional art forms. The event, now in its second year, provides a community and space for Indigenous culture and talent to be celebrated.  Michelle H. Martin, the Beverly Cleary Professor for Children an

9 iSchool students honored among 2023 Husky 100

Monday, April 24, 2023

The University of Washington recognized nine students from the Information School for the 2023 Husky 100, awarded to undergraduate and graduate students making the most out of their Husky experience. The Husky 100, now in its eighth year, celebrates students who have demonstrated excellence inside the classroom and beyond, showing a commitment to a set of criteria that include leadership, engagement and community impact.  The iSchool honorees this year include seven students from the Bachelor of Science in Informatics program, one from the Master of Library and Information Science (

iSchool to partner on new UW Center for Environmental Health Equity

Monday, April 17, 2023

The University of Washington Information School will be a key partner in a new center that will address longstanding environmental and energy justice issues — from legacy pollution to energy security — in Pacific Northwest and Alaska Native communities. A $12 million, five-year cooperative agreement announced April 17 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will create the UW Center for Environmental Health Equity, housed in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS) in the School of Public Health. The iSchool will bring its expertise in In

Informatics grad among iSchool presenters at iConference

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Informatics alum Ria Antony presented research at this year’s iConference in Barcelona after completing their undergraduate degree from the University of Washington this past quarter. Antony was one of the youngest presenters at the iConference, an international gathering of scholars, researchers and practitioners in the information field representing iSchools from around the world.   Antony presented a paper titled “Understanding the Influence of Music on People’s Mental Health Through Dynamic Music Engagement Model.” Among the co-authors of the paper were Informatics

Ph.D. student Caroline Pitt explores gaming as an educational tool

Monday, April 10, 2023

Caroline Pitt grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons; her mother had a copy of the original edition. “This has been a part of my life for my whole life!” she said. “It’s always fun to introduce new people to the hobby.” Past characters of Pitt’s include a transmutation wizard, a homebrew harvest cleric, and a wild magic barbarian who played bagpipes.  Now, as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Washington Information School, Pitt is combining her interests in tabletop role-playing games with her research in co-design, human-computer interaction, research-practice partner

iSchool's Davis discusses raising 'Technology's Child'

Thursday, April 6, 2023

Katie Davis, an associate professor at the University of Washington Information School, drew on her expertise in developmental science March 23 at Town Hall Seattle in a talk titled “The Role of Digital Media in the Ages and Stages of Growing Up.”  Davis, who is a co-director of the iSchool’s Digital Youth Lab, spoke about her research and her recently published book, Technology’s Child. In the book, Davis investigates how children engage with technology at each stage of development, from toddler years to their early 20s, and how they can best be supported.  “When doe

Q&A: Marika Cifor on new Spanish-language LGBTQIA+ resource

Monday, April 3, 2023

The Homosaurus is a linked data controlled vocabulary used by libraries, museums and other cultural heritage institutions worldwide to describe LGBTQIA+ resources and aid in indexing and retrieving content. With updated versions released twice a year, the Homosaurus has expanded its English-language vocabulary to include more than 2,500 terms. Now, Marika Cifor will spend the next three years developing a free-standing Spanish-language Homosaurus. Cifor, University of Washington assistant professor in the Information School, was awarded a 2023 grant from the National Endowment for the Hu

Summit brings online MSIM students to campus

Monday, March 20, 2023

Journalist and author Mónica Guzman’s advice for Master of Science in Information Management students: “Where you can, welcome disagreement.” She shared those words with dozens of online students March 17 at the opening keynote of the MSIM Online Student Summit on the University of Washington campus. The event brought dozens of students to campus for two days of workshops and networking with faculty and fellow students. After the opening evening’s session, which also included an address from iSchool Dean Anind Dey, students returned Saturday for a full day of workshops on to

World struggles to make progress on meaningful access to information

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Information access is a fundamental driver of many of the goals in the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, yet many countries are struggling to make progress. A new analysis has found that statistical indicators of freedom and gender equity — two pillars of meaningful access to information — show decline and stagnation midway through the Agenda put forth in 2015. The findings come from research into seven years of data by the Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) at the University of Washington and the International Federation of Library Associations and Insti

Belarde-Lewis shows storytelling power of Native art

Monday, March 13, 2023

“My niece always says, ‘What a time to be alive.’ She’s absolutely right. There’s so much potential in us to learn from our history and see the world through an artist’s eyes, filled with wonder and hope.” — Miranda Belarde-Lewis  Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit) explored the ways Native artists use traditional art forms to document time in a webinar hosted by Humanities Washington on Feb. 28.  Belarde-Lewis, an assistant professor and the inaugural Joe and Jill McKinstry Endowed Faculty Fellow in Native North American Indigenous Knowledge at the UW Infor

17 iSchool MLIS students awarded UW Libraries scholarships

Monday, March 6, 2023

Seventeen Information School students are among the 50 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. All the iSchool recipients come from the Master of Library and Information Science program: Shaye Anis, Pavel Lvovich Batalov, Natalie Brown, Connie Cheng, Melissa Fallon, Nestor Amador Guerrero, Izak Hosmer-Dillard, Catherine Jensen, Joe Lollo, Artemis Lo

Despite policies, societal barriers hinder young women's STEM education in Ghana

Monday, March 6, 2023

For decades, international agencies such as the U.N. have stressed the urgency and necessity of gender digital equality, yet in low- and middle-income countries like Ghana, progress has been frustratingly slow. Researchers at the UW Information School’s Technology and Social Change Group (TASCHA) want to know why. In partnership with Ghana-based researchers Kwasi Ansu-Kyeremeh, Marcia Abonie and Naa Ansaa Ansai-Koi from the MmaaTech Foundation, Maria Garrido and Araba Sey investigated the extent to which family norms, classroom dynamics and policymaking — which we can think of as separa

Ph.D. student’s work on health microaggressions wins acclaim

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Information School doctoral student Hyeyoung Ryu and Professor Wanda Pratt recently won the Samantha Adams Best Paper award for their paper published in JAMIA, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. Their paper, “Microaggression clues from social media: revealing and counteracting the suppression of women’s health care,” exposes how social media reveals and reinforces the suppression of health care for unmarried Korean women. The award recognizes a recent paper that exemplifies the legacy and scholarship of Adams’s work at the intersection of informatics and ethic

UW CREATE: Rethinking disability and advancing access

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in four people in the United States lives with a disability. “The presence of disability is everywhere,” says Heather Feldner, UW Medicine assistant professor in Rehabilitation Medicine and associate director with the UW Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE). “But how disability has been constructed, as an individual problem that needs to be fixed, leads to exclusion and discrimination.” The construct also ignores the reality that people's physical and mental abil