At her heart, Songhee Kim is an artist, and she’s found ways to incorporate that into her career path over the years. She earned an undergraduate degree in 3D animation and visual effects from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and went on to work for projects such as Disney Junior’s “Sophia the First” and CBN’s “Superbook.” Now she is the College of Communication and Information’s User eXperience Lab manager and graphic designer, as well as a graduate student at the School of Information Sciences.
Kim met her now-husband in Seoul, Korea, when he was stationed there with … Read more “SIS Grad Student Songhee Kim Becomes CCI’s UX Lab Manager and Graphic Designer”
At the end of this month, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will be well-represented at the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) in Salt Lake City. It is at this conference that 
Diona Eberhart Layden is a licensed attorney and has served as a judicial law clerk for the Tennessee Supreme Court, worked in the Davidson County District Attorney General’s Office, and currently serves as a Guardian ad Litem in the Davidson County Juvenile Court. But after two decades of working as a lawyer, she decided she “wanted to do something a little different” and is currently entering her second year in the MSIS program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Melinda Sandkam has always had a heart for certain endeavors, including the education of children and youth, and also helping people find the answers they need. This has guided her career, which includes positions as a hotel concierge, church program director, and preschool director. So perhaps it’s not unusual that she decided to pursue information sciences and librarianship as the next branch of her career
“I just want students to fall in love with the space of the library and feel welcomed there and affirmed there,” said MSIS student Alissa Browning-Couch as she explained why she decided to make a career change and become a school librarian.
Whiskey and metadata are two of Kyle Johnson’s favorite things, so it made sense to put them together for a project this last year in his metadata class. The result was “Whiskey Label Schema,” which has earned him the 2021 SIS Best Technical Project Award.
Jesse Morris has been simultaneously working in a data management position at Oak Ridge National Lab while taking classes in the MSIS program for the last four years. One of the benefits of this has been aligning class projects with work she’s doing at her job. That’s the case for the paper she wrote that won the 2021 SIS Best Paper Award, “GIS for Knowledge Management: Leveraging mapping tools to address baby boomer ‘brain drain”.”
Ashley Orehek came to SIS dreaming about becoming some sort of science librarian and was part of the very first CALL cohort at the School, which trains students to become liaisons between scientists and the rest of the world. That dream hasn’t faded a bit, but she’s since added onto her path towards it. It’s likely that her ability to be flexible and her propensity to give her all in everything she does is why she is this year’s recipient of the CCI Outstanding Information Sciences Student Award.
Kay P Maye never really noticed how information flowed and shaped the world prior to entering the MSIS program, but now he sees it everywhere, in everything he does. He’s particularly interested in how everyday people find information and how they judge whether or not it is good or bad information.
Julia Proctor spent her time in the MSIS program staying very busy with extracurricular activities related to the School and information sciences – so it should be no surprise that she is being given the 2021 SIS Outstanding Service Award. Nonetheless, Proctor, said she was surprised to get the news but also “really happy.”