MLIS students document young people's censorship stories

Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Within a few weeks of its launch in April 2022, Books Unbanned went viral. Amid growing censorship campaigns, the initiative, which offers any teenager or young adult in the U.S. a library card granting free access to Brooklyn Public Library’s digital collections, was flooded with hundreds of applications a day. Amy Mikel, MLIS ’12, director of customer experience at Brooklyn Public Library, was helping to process applications, which include a question for the young readers about the impacts of censorship.“I started sitting with the weight of these stories, thinking that we hav

iSchool awards honor 2 equity-minded alumni

Monday, May 13, 2024

This year’s Information School Alumni Impact Awards honor two graduates whose work pursues different forms of equity, one through her research and one by changing the ways research is disseminated.Distinguished Alumni Award recipient Eun Kyoung Choe, Ph.D. ’14, is an associate professor at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies. Working at the intersection of human-computer interaction and health informatics, she creates accessible health technologies for marginalized populations.Choe’s research started with sleep tracking. Her dissertation at the iSchool focu

Fellowship backs Ph.D. student's research on tribal health equity

Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Jesse Brisbois grew up listening her grandfather tell stories about the construction of Grand Coulee Dam. He would explain how the dam nearly decimated salmon and steelhead populations that their family and other members of the Spokane Tribe of Indians depended on for food. All these years later, Brisbois, a second year Ph.D. student at the University of Washington Information School, intends to use her research to advocate for tribes that have lost access to their historical food or water sources. Brisbois’s research will demonstrate how that lack of access to natural resources ha

MSIM student puts skills to work in Ethiopia

Monday, May 6, 2024

Nikhil Shenoy traveled to Ethiopia last summer to participate in one of the new study abroad programs offered by the University of Washington Information School. As part of the inaugural group, Shenoy, who is pursuing a master’s degree in information management, and his fellow students were granted the freedom to shape a project utilizing skills they learned in the iSchool.His group developed a plan to expand access to e-commerce for small-business owners in the East African nation. The business owners create wares valued by shoppers worldwide, but much of the infrastructure needed to reach

Playbook promotes neuroinclusion at federal agencies

Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Hala Annabi, an associate professor in the University of Washington Information School, originally authored the Autism@Work Playbook in 2019 in partnership with several leading private employers with the goal of increasing employment opportunities for neurodivergent people. Today she is releasing another version, the Neurodiversity@Work Playbook Federal Edition, in tandem with Melwood, a non-profit supporting employment of neurodivergent and disabled people; and Mitre, a non-profit R&D organization. We asked her about the impetus and potential impact of this edition.How did this version of

2 Informatics students, 1 MSIM student among Husky 100

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

The University of Washington recognized three students from the Information School among the 2024 Husky 100, awarded to undergraduate and graduate students making the most out of their Husky experience. Now in its ninth year, the Husky 100 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 two students from the Bachelor of Science in Informatics program and one Master of Science in Information Managem

Kids get a taste of Informatics at Hack for Social Good

Wednesday, April 17, 2024

The Hack for Social Good hackathon brought 200 students from local high schools and middle schools to the Intellectual House at the University of Washington on April 5 for a day of creative and collaborative problem-solving. Led by Information School Diversity Programs Advisor Cynthia del Rosario and iSchool student leaders, the hackathon prompted students to design technology solutions to problems they identify in society while getting to experience what a day in the life of an Informatics student is like. iSchool Dean Anind Dey kicked off the hackathon with an introduction to the i

Home country's lack of technology inspires Informatics student

Tuesday, April 2, 2024

During a trip to Eritrea, Nobel Menghis noticed the lack of access to technology in his home country. Fueled by a desire to make technology more accessible, Menghis has dedicated his education and career to achieving this goal.  Menghis, a third-year Informatics student at the University of Washington, recently received the Larsen Family Endowed Scholarship and a second award from the Information School Scholarship Fund, supported by alumni and donors. “I am so grateful and amazed to have been selected for these scholarships,” said Menghis. “It has lessened the financial b

Professor weaves recipes and stories from Syrian refugee camp

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

As an embedded researcher in the Zaatari Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, Karen Fisher wanted to know about the effects of domicide and the invisible lives of women.Those living in the camp are conservative Sunni Muslim, and it’s rare to see women working in public, said Fisher, a professor at the University of Washington Information School. To learn about women’s daily lives in the camp, she asked many of them to keep and share diaries. When one 15-year-old girl included her favorite cake recipe in hers, it sparked an idea for a way to document women’s knowledge and preserve an important

Researchers teach kids to code with cultural research, embroidery machines

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Even in tech-heavy Washington state, the numbers of students with access to computer science classes aren’t higher than national averages: In the 2022-2023 school year, 48% of public high schools offered foundational CS classes and 5% of middle school and high school students took such classes.Those numbers have inched up, but historically marginalized populations are still less likely to attend schools teaching computer science, and certain groups — such as Latinx students and young women — are less likely than their peers to be enrolled in the classes even if the school offers them.To

ACM recognizes Amy Ko as Distinguished Member

Monday, March 18, 2024

UW Information School Professor Amy J. Ko is among 52 global scholars recognized as Distinguished Members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for their innovative contributions to the computing field. The ACM is the world’s largest computing society. It recognizes up to 10 percent of its worldwide membership as distinguished members based on their professional experience, groundbreaking achievements, and longstanding participation in computing. The ACM has three tiers of recognition: fellows, distinguished members and senior members. The Distinguished Member Recognitio

Q&A: How Instagram influencers profit from anti-vaccine misinformation

Monday, March 18, 2024

While Instagram might have a reputation for superficiality — a realm of exquisitely filtered images — it is now eclipsing other social media as a news source. The platform is increasingly filled with information, some of it pernicious and distributed via influencers.Researchers at the University of Washington studied three prominent Instagram influencers spreading anti-vaccine misinformation as a route to profit. Each account occupies what lead author Rachel E. Moran, a UW senior research scientist at the Center for an Informed Public (CIP) and staff researcher in the Information Scho

MLIS student hopes to smooth the path to grad school

Monday, March 11, 2024

As an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, María Fernanda (Fer) Palomares Carranco found it challenging to do the type of research that would support her graduate school goals. The libraries and catalogs were difficult to navigate, and she didn’t know how to get more help. After she earned her bachelor's degree, she was looking for a graduate program, but again, finding the necessary information was overwhelming. When she began working in graduate admissions, she suddenly had an insider’s view to the admissions process and she realized there was much she hadn’t known

Women in Entrepreneurship event celebrates innovation

Monday, March 11, 2024

With the launch of the iStartup Lab, new entrepreneurship courses available to students, and opportunities to develop a startup idea from the hackathon stage to a full-fledged company, now is a rewarding time to be an entrepreneur at the University of Washington Information School. “I tell my students all the time, the classroom is the practice space,” said Sara Sanford, assistant teaching professor and the founder and principal consultant of GEN Certification. She was speaking to an audience gathered at Startup Hall on Feb. 21 for an event focused on women in entrepreneursh

iSchool scholar confronts rising tide of electronic waste

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

As an iSchool doctoral candidate, Nick Logler spent weeks rummaging through trash piles on the side of the road, ferreting around in thrift stores, and browsing platforms like Craigslist. Discarded desktop printers were his target, and he ultimately collected more than a dozen to supply workshops for middle schoolers to explore concepts like materiality and disassembly. They would take the defunct printers apart, then observe and identify the components beneath the surface. After brainstorming and reimagining applications for these parts, the students built entirely new objects. Workshops