Jordan Eschler successfully defended her PhD dissertation titled, “Designing for the Dynamic Needs of Young Adult Cancer Survivors”! Not only did she present her work with young adult cancer survivors, but she also highlighted the substantial contributions her work, including: improved technologies to support dynamic information needs and improved interactions from oncologists with young adult cancer survivors. Congratulations, Jordan! Thanks also to her committee, including Wanda Pratt (Chair), Sean Munson, Jaime Snyder, Annie Chen and Andrea Hartzler. ... Phil Fawcett successfully defended his PhD Dissertation titled, “The information lives of immigrant and refugee youth acting as Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Wayfarers”. One of the outcomes of his research was an evolving participatory framework and youth engagement model called Teen Design Days (TDD). This combined strategic use of design thinking and design artifacts provides insights to information worlds of ICT Wayfaring youth and their ethnic communities. Thanks also to his committee: Karen Fisher (Chair), Ricardo Gomez, Ed Cutrell, and Katriina Voght. ... 

Jason Portenoy successfully passed his general examination this week. Congratulations, Jason! Thanks also to his committee members: Jevin West, Emma Spiro, Bill Howe and Mako Hill. ... Moonjung Yim also passed her general exam this week! Congratulations, Moon! Thanks also to her committee, including Matt Saxton, Michelle Carter and Negin Dahya, and Katharyne Mitchell (GSR). ... John Porter (HCDE), Jin Ha Lee, Travis Windleharth, Stephen Keating, and Marc Schmalz received the UW Harlan Hahn Endowment Fund Grant for their Game Accessibility Metadata Project. ... Michael Katell participated in the Philosophy of Social Science Roundtable held on May 19^th and 20^th in Vancouver, B.C. He presented his paper-in-progress titled, “The Normative Force of Quantified Reputation.” ... Chris Heaney, David McDonald (HCDE), and Jin Ha Lee had a paper accepted to the ASIS&T 2017 Annual Meeting titled, “F#%@ That Noise: SoundCloud As (A-)Social Media?” The meeting will take place October 27^th to November 1^st in Washington D.C. ... Jin Ha Lee, Travis Windleharth, and Hyerim Cho had a paper accepted to the ASIS&T 2017 Annual Meeting titled, “Toward an Understanding of Cross-Media Appeals for Readers’ Advisory”. This work results from the OCLC/ALISE Library and Information Science Research Grant. ... 

Ivette Bayo Urban has great news to report! She wrote an Op-Ed titled, Digital Citizenship—prioritize people, not technologies, for MyEdmondsNews, which The Center for Digital Inclusion at the iSchool at Illinois also ran. She graduated from Leadership Snohomish County, a local organization recognized for cultivating sustainable leadership. Over the past 15 years, more than 500 Snohomish County professionals have graduated from LSC. She will present at the 19th Annual Allied Media Conference on a FemTechNet Panel titled, Alternative Teaching Practice: FemTechNet. The conference takes place in Detroit, Michigan. Along with Stephanie Torres and Erin Jones, she will facilitate a program at the 2017 WLA Annual Conference titled, Social Justice Education Around Technology (SEAT): Critical Conversations. The Washington Library Association Conference will take place November 1^st to 4^th at the Hotel Murano in Tacoma. Finally, her TEDx Sno-Isle Libraries talk titled, We are our stories: Is technology rewriting our values? is live on youtube. ... 

Here’s the latest from Jason Yip: He presented the keynote presentation at the KBTC Community Breakfast (PBS station), on STEM learning and families. He’s an invited panelist at the 16th Interaction Design and Children Conference, to be held in Stanford, California from June 27^th to 30^th. His topic will be Interaction Design and the Learning Sciences. ACM Foundations of Digital Games Conference 2017 accepted his symposium on families and digital games. The conference will take place August 14^th to 17^th in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. And finally, a hearty congratulations to Jason! This week Routledge published his book titled, Participatory Design for Learning: Perspectives from Research and Practice.