University of Washington Information School

Meet our newest featured "I Am the iSchool" alum, Aaron HC Black! Aaron graduated from the MLIS Law Librarianship Program in 2024, and works at the Fineman and Pappas Law Libraries and the Boston University School of Law. He shared that the program leaders in the Law Librarianship Program helped play a crucial role in building community. He also shared that he strives to create more inclusive and equitable spaces for all in this field, identifying as mixed-race with Pueblo and Navajo tribal affiliated origins. Thank you, Aaron, for speaking with us!

Read the full interview: https://ischool.uw.edu/profiles/aaron-black

This year’s Winfo Hackathon, hosted by the group Women in Informatics (Winfo), University of Washington, empowered students to push boundaries while staying true to themselves. With the theme "Breaking Grounds, Discovering Solutions," participants took on real-world challenges, showcased their creativity, and built innovative tech solutions.

Check out the event recap here: https://bit.ly/winfohack25

"In a public emergency, in the corporate world, or in our day-to-day lives, people need quality information to make decisions."

At the iSchool, our students and alumni are dedicated to providing trustworthy and equitable information solutions that create meaningful change.

Learn more about how our programs empower students in the latest dean's message from Anind Dey:

In times of crisis, count on iSchool students and alumni As last month’s devastating wildfires raged in Los Angeles, the city’s residents faced a barrage of falsehoods on social media along with erroneous eva...

This , we're celebrating changemakers at the iSchool who are shaping the future of information, technology, and justice.

Kicking off our series is Tracie D. Hall, a visionary leader in the LIS field and an advocate for information access, literacy, and equity. Hall has dedicated her career to breaking down barriers and empowering communities through knowledge.

Stay tuned as we highlight more inspiring iSchoolers making an impact throughout the month!

The iSchool is hiring! We are looking for a Program Coordinator for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access, and Sovereignty (IDEAS). In this position, you’ll play a key role in supporting various IDEAS initiatives through program development, event planning, stakeholder engagement, and data management.

Application deadline is Sunday, February 16, 2025.

Apply here: bit.ly/IDEASjob

The iSchool honors ! We celebrate the Black innovators, leaders and changemakers who have shaped history and continue to drive progress in tech, information science, and beyond.

Meet our newest featured "I Am the iSchool,” Itza Carbajal! Itza is a Ph.D. candidate at the iSchool, interested in conducting community-based research and teaching across age populations about archives, libraries and information science topics. Her advice for students interested in GLAM [galleries, libraries, archives, museums] fields is to try things out and see how well something fits. Thank you for speaking with us, Itza!

Read the full interview: https://ischool.uw.edu/profiles/itza-carbajal

By partnering with the UW iSchool, companies like Seattle-based PitchBook navigate the challenges of innovation and talent acquisition. Our strategic partnerships support students' hands-on learning in Capstone projects.

Learn more: https://ischool.uw.edu/partners/iaffiliates/helps-pitchbook-innovate-find-talent

Happy Lunar New Year to the whole Husky community! Wishing you all the best in the year of the snake. 🐍🐍🎉

Can generative AI enhance data analysis in complex research?

iSchool researchers including Ott Toomet, Jinrui Fang and Runhan Chen put large language models (LLMs) to the test, using them to analyze police and hospital records in a study on firearm-related incidents. Through this innovative approach, they are examining whether LLMs can outperform traditional machine learning methods in processing complex data.

Read more about their findings:

Researchers prompt generative AI to help with fi****ms study Researchers studying firearm-related incidents face significant challenges in gathering relevant data. Critical resources, such as police and hospital reco...

Read about the exciting new Society + Technology Initiative at the University of Washington! https://ischool.uw.edu/news/2025/01/ischool-scholars-play-key-role-launch-uw-society-technology

We recently held an inaugural convening that included UW President Ana Mari Cauce, Provost Tricia Serio, and faculty and staff leaders. The Initiative is intended to bolster research, teaching and learning across UW campuses in Seattle, Tacoma and Bothell, and at UW Medicine. Additional coverage from GeekWire: https://www.geekwire.com/2025/uw-initiative-society-technology-aims-to-foster-broad-collaboration-at-critical-intersection/

Q&A: Will the next generation of AI be agents that can shop autonomously? Chirag Shah, a UW professor in the Information School, discusses what AI agents are and what might impede a near future where people can simply get AI bots to shop for them.

The Center for an Informed Public at UW is hiring! They are looking for a full-time Research-to-Policy Fellow to help bridge the gap between policy and research. In this role, you’ll communicate policy-relevant insights from CIP and campus partners, advancing their mission to resist strategic misinformation and promote an informed society.

Priority deadline of Sunday, February 9, 2025.

Apply here: https://bit.ly/cipjob

This UW News article details research by Robert Wolfe, Bill Howe and Alexis Hiniker of the Information School, along with Aayushi Dangol of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE). Their research finds that cultural context matters in how AI references and predicts associations with teenagers. https://www.washington.edu/news/2025/01/21/teens-ai-chatgpt-bias/

Study finds strong negative associations with teenagers in AI models A UW team studied how AI systems portray teens in English and Nepali, and found that in English language systems around 30% of the responses referenced societal problems such as violence, drug use and...

A tremendous thank you to Marilyn Gell Mason for years of service on our MLIS Advisory Board. Marilyn Gell Mason served as the director of the White House Conference on Library and Information Services in 1979. Subsequently she served as the director of the Atlanta Fulton County Library System, the Cleveland Public Library, and was founder of WebJunction. She served on the boards of OCLC, the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), the IFLA - International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions Standing Committee on Public Libraries, and the National Commission on Library and Information Science. She has also been a frequent contributor to the professional press.

Marilyn shared this reflection:

“It has been my great good fortune to have the opportunity to serve on the MLIS board for many years. In the early part of my tenure as I was hiring staff for WebJunction I was able to work with students and graduates of the UW iSchool. I was pleased with the range and depth of their understanding of libraries and library issues. These very capable professionals made it possible for WebJunction to succeed. Later, as the challenges facing libraries have grown I have found the MLIS program to be especially agile in addressing policy and management issues that other schools have ignored. It has been an honor to work with such an impressive faculty and staff.”

Thank you again for all you’ve done to strengthen the Master of Library and Information Science program for students past, present and future! All the best from your friends and colleagues at the iSchool.

Informatics is one of the most competitive programs at the University of Washington. Student demand is off the charts and businesses are eager to hire our graduates, but it will take further state and industry support to meet students' needs:

Amid soaring demand, Informatics stretched to the limit State Impact Report: Learn how Informatics and other Information School programs are making their mark on the state workforce.• Web version• Flipbook�...

Would you drive 4,000 miles for your dream job? 🚗🌲

Anne Longman's internship at the Klondike National Historic Park, combined with her studies in Museology, led her from Seattle to her dream job with the National Park Service's Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument (History) in Maine:

Museology program was alum's path to dream job When Anne Longman was offered her dream job, she wasted no time.“The week after graduation, I packed up my car, put my pet goldfish in a Home Depot bucke...