News Category: faculty-news

Texas iSchool awarded $635K grant to improve credit for research software

Nov. 10, 2016

School of Information Assistant Professor James Howison is collaborating on a new project that aims to transform the way we measure the scholarly impact of software.

Funded by a three-year, $635,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Dr. Howison is working with the open-source website Impactstory to create a database of software projects that are mentioned in research papers.

Advisory Council welcomes new chair, vice chair

Nov. 2, 2016

Dr. Dale Ricklefs has concluded her three-year term as chair of the School of Information Advisory Council. She is succeeded by Christian Schley, who served the past three years as vice chair. 

In addition, Advisory Council member Sue Trombley has been appointed vice chair.

Alumna rejoins school as career development director

Oct. 13, 2016

 

One of the School of Information’s own graduates has returned as the director of career development.

 

Beth Hallmark brings more than 20 years of experience as a hiring manager and communications leader to the iSchool. She joined the team in September from Austin-based Hanger Inc., where she was director of public relations and communications.

 

Longtime Professor Barbara Immroth retires

Sept. 20, 2016

Barbara Immroth, a professor renowned for her research of children’s libraries and literature, has retired. 

A faculty member of the School of Information since 1980, Immroth won numerous state and national awards for her service to the library field. She has also shaped the careers of librarians throughout Texas and the United States.

Professor Loriene Roy Receives Grant For Veterans

Feb. 8, 2016

iSchool professor Loriene Roy has always had a desire to bring services to U.S. military veterans. Roy’s father received a Bronze Star in the Korean War. Two years ago, she started working with SongwritingWith:Soldiers, a nonprofit organization founded by Austin singer and songwriter Darden Smith. The  nonprofit pairs veterans and active-duty service members with professional songwriters to craft songs about their military experiences, often about combat and returning home.

Gwizdka, Zhang Earn Grant

Feb. 8, 2016

UT iSchool Assistant Professors Yan Zhang and Jacek Gwizdka received a $44,444 grant from the UT-Austin in Portugal International collaborator for Emerging Technologies co-lab.  The grant will fund their study of interface and content elements that people use to evaluate online health care information.  Zhang and Gwizdka are working with their colleague Carla Lopes from the University of Porto in Portugal.

 

 

Barker, Gruning receive Dasher Best Paper Award at FIE conference

Feb. 8, 2016

 

University of Texas School of Information Associate Professor and iSchool doctoral student Jane Gruning won the Benjamin J. Dasher Best Paper Award at the 2015 Frontiers in Education conference in El Paso in October.

Barker and Gruning wrote “The Student Prompt: Student Feedback and Change in Teaching Practices in Postsecondary Computer Science” in spring 2014 based on research they conducted on what influences computer science faculty to potentially change their current teaching practices.

Professor Bias Receives Research Grants

Feb. 8, 2016

In June, iSchool associate professor and Information eXperience Lab co-director Randolph Bias received funding for two research threads.  He earned a $34,000 research grant from the UT-Austin Center for Identity to fulfill his research program “An Empirical Study of the Level of Agreement between Social Media Users’ Perceived and Actual Privacy Settings.” The CID serves as a center of excellence for identity management, privacy and security. 

UT-Austin Portugal International Collaboratory

Feb. 8, 2016

Assistant Professor Jacek Gwizdka and Associate Professor Matthew Lease and Luis Francisco-Revilla received a $100,000 grant for their project “Relevance Mining and Detection System.” Francisco-Revilla serves as a research associate and manager of the visualization interfaces and applications group at the Texas Advanced Computing Center.