School of Information Sciences

PhD Student Jessica Barfield Named ASIS&T Emerging Scholar for AI Voice Research Done with Professor Dania Bilal

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A collaboration between the College of Communication and Information PhD student and  School of Information Sciences professor has resulted in innovative research that reaches into the future of AI-powered voice digital assistants and explores how it can be more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

This research resulted in a co-authored paper and an award for the doctoral student, Jessica Barfield. Barfield was named the 2021 Emerging Social Informatics Researcher Award from the Association for Information Sciences and Technology (ASIS&T) Special Interest Group in Social Informatics, in part for the paper, “Hey There! What Do You Look Like? User Voice Switching and … Read more “PhD Student Jessica Barfield Named ASIS&T Emerging Scholar for AI Voice Research Done with Professor Dania Bilal”

Paper by PhD Student Joseph Winberry & Associate Professor Devendra Potnis Wins ALISE Award

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Devendra Potnis

When Joseph Winberry was still a master’s student at SIS, he was a graduate teaching assistant to Associate Professor Devendra Potnis and also assisted in research. Both Potnis and Winberry are interested in social innovation, social justice, and the role information sciences can play in both of those areas.

Winberry was helping with Potnis’s research on managing innovations in public libraries, along with two other MSIS students, Bonnie Finn and Courtney Hunt. Out of that project the group published two research articles, and Winberry was still working on a literature review Potnis had asked him to conduct on the subject.… Read more “Paper by PhD Student Joseph Winberry & Associate Professor Devendra Potnis Wins ALISE Award”

MSIS Alum and Current CCI PhD Student Joseph Winberry (’19) Awarded Marva Rudolph Scholarship

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When he was growing up, Joseph Winberry (’19) spent a lot of time around his grandparents and their friends in a retirement community – he found himself drawn to older people, and it stuck. It was just a fluke, he said, that he eventually was hired for a job at the Knoxville-Knox County Office on Aging (OOA). But that coincidence brought him full circle to serve a population he had grown up around.

While he was working at the OOA, Winberry began realizing that aging isn’t a one-note experience.

“It really helped me realize the inequities and injustices that older … Read more “MSIS Alum and Current CCI PhD Student Joseph Winberry (’19) Awarded Marva Rudolph Scholarship”

PhD Spotlight: Simmons University Assistant Professor Rebecca Davis Awarded IMLS Grant

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Rebecca Davis recently received a grant from the Institute of Museums and Libraries that will continue in a similar vein of research she started as a doctoral student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Davis is an assistant professor at the Simmons University School of Library and Information Sciences in Boston, and her research through the grant will focus on African American undergraduate students’ experiences with and use of academic libraries. When she was earning her PhD at the College of Communication and Information, Davis researched the use of academic libraries’ resources and services by another specific group, undergraduate women … Read more “PhD Spotlight: Simmons University Assistant Professor Rebecca Davis Awarded IMLS Grant”

Joseph Winberry (’19) to Co-Lead UT Webinar About Civic Engagement

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Joseph Winberry

SIS alumni and current CCI doctoral student Joseph Winberry (’19) will be co-leading in a university-wide webinar 2 p.m. Aug. 27 with the Office of Community Engagement and Outreach to discuss a LibGuide he wrote as a master’s student.

Nicole Bryant of the OCEO said she came across Winberry’s LibGuide while searching UT resources about civic engagement for a fall series of webinars to complement the Imagine Tennessee pilot program she manages. Anyone on campus can attend the webinar and those interested are encouraged to register ahead of time.

“We are really big on promoting resources that are … Read more “Joseph Winberry (’19) to Co-Lead UT Webinar About Civic Engagement”

Katie Knight Pursues Big Data and Her Doctorate

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Katie KnightKatie KnightKatie Knight has traveled from one end of the information sciences highway to the other – from public libraries to archives, and from archives to metadata.

As part of her job as an assistant librarian at the New York School of Design, she cataloged and archived items requiring metadata tagging. It was then that she found a new love within the information sciences, and pursued a job at Oak Ridge National Lab that focused on data and inventive solutions.

“They were looking for someone to be forward-thinking and ready to innovate because they had fairly traditional cataloging and archiving processes. … Read more “Katie Knight Pursues Big Data and Her Doctorate”

PhD Student Cassandra Huang Pursues Research to Make an Impact on Teenage Cyber-bullying

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PhD Student Cassandra HuangWhen Cassandra Huang graduated from high school in her home country of Taiwan, her General Scholastic Ability Test results gave her several options as to what she could pursue in college. For her, it came down to a choice between Chinese literature study and library information science; she chose the latter.

“The LIS field has practical parts and research parts – if I wanted to go more practical, I could be a librarian, and if I wanted to do more with research, I could continue with my journey and get a masters and PhD,” she explained, also noting that she’d … Read more “PhD Student Cassandra Huang Pursues Research to Make an Impact on Teenage Cyber-bullying”

PhD Alum Danielle Pollock Pursues Her Love of Libraries, Research and Teaching

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When Danielle Pollock was an undergraduate, she and a friend devised a plan to open an independent bookstore someday. The rise of online shopping and e-books stymied their dreams, but actually led to some of the research work that the UT PhD alum does today.

“I always knew I was interested in libraries – not just that I liked books, but I liked doing research. When I was looking at potential master’s, I knew that if there was one thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life, librarianship would be that,” she said.

After earning her undergraduate … Read more “PhD Alum Danielle Pollock Pursues Her Love of Libraries, Research and Teaching”

PhD Student Kevin Mallary Seeks to Help Higher Ed Students With Disabilities to Excel

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University of Tennessee College of Communication and Information doctoral student Kevin Mallary was diving into information science during his undergraduate and master’s programs in communication at Wake Forest University before he even knew what information science was. At the time, he was focusing his research on website accessibility for users with disabilities.

“When I go back and look at all the references I used, what I cited was literature from information sciences. I didn’t have a clue that [information sciences] was what I was actually studying,” he said.

While he was earning his master’s degree, he took on teaching and … Read more “PhD Student Kevin Mallary Seeks to Help Higher Ed Students With Disabilities to Excel”

PhD Alum and SIS Lecturer Crystal Sherline Explores Usability, Digital Preservation

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Crystal SherlineCrystal Sherline didn’t think she wanted to get a PhD; she was working as a library director of a small, rural library, and had already been through the rigorous PhD experience with a spouse.

“I had a couple of patrons I was very close to, who were older and worldly. They told me, ‘You need to go do a PhD.’ I contemplated for a couple of years, but I’m a lifetime learner,” Sherline said.

She earned her doctoral degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, College of Communications and Information, with an emphasis in information sciences. After she graduated in … Read more “PhD Alum and SIS Lecturer Crystal Sherline Explores Usability, Digital Preservation”