Brief Bio
Dr. Vandana Singh is an academic leader with extensive experience in transdisciplinary program development and collaborative curriculum innovation. At the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), she leads the design and implementation of high-impact undergraduate and graduate programs that span multiple academic disciplines and align with rapidly evolving industry needs. Dr. Singh’s leadership has resulted in the successful development and Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) approval of five undergraduate degrees—Applied Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Cybersecurity, Innovative Transdisciplinary Studies (ITS), and Information Sciences —as well as two graduate programs in Sustainability and Data Science.
The ITS program features a highly customizable, certificate-based curriculum created in collaboration with faculty from thirteen colleges across UTK. In total, Dr. Singh has facilitated the engagement of over 100 faculty members and a dozen university-wide committees, working closely with department heads, associate deans, and industry partners to advance CECS’s academic mission.
Prior to joining CECS, Dr. Singh spent over two decades conducting internationally recognized interdisciplinary research and preparing professionals in the fields of information science and technology. Her global research collaborations span computer science, engineering, nursing, education, business information systems, and the arts and sciences, and include participation in international teams with members from up to ten countries. Dr. Singh’s work reflects a career-long commitment to academic innovation, global engagement, and the power of collective effort.
About Me: Details
Dr. Vandana* Singh is the Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs and New Programs. at the College of Emerging and Collaborative Studies (CECS). Concurrently, Dr. Singh is a Professor at the iSchool, the School of Information Sciences (SIS) at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. In 2022-2023 Dr. Singh served as the founding Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the College of Communication and Information. Before that, Dr. Singh was the founding Director of Undergraduate Studies (2017 – 2019) at the School of Information Sciences (SIS) at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.
For regularly updated current news, please refer to this page.
Dr. Singh received the 2021 Collège of Communication and Information Faculty Research Award; please click below to read the details about the award and her work.
Dr. Singh joined the SIS faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2008 and was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor in 2014. In her time at SIS, Dr. Singh has worked as Information Science and Technology Minor Coordinator (2008 – 2011), Acting Associate Director of SIS (2013), and the inaugurating Director of Undergraduate Studies (May 2017 – April 2019).
Dr. Singh graduated with a Ph.D. in Information Science from the iSchool at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, in 2008. Her dissertation research was on Online Communities to Support the Users of Open Source Software. For more details about her research, please click here. She holds two master’s degrees, one in Computer Science from the University of Chicago, Illinois, USA, and the other in Knowledge Management Systems from Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Her undergraduate degree is from G.B. Pant University, in the foothills of the Himalayas in India. Please browse through the site to get to know Dr. Singh 🙂
Her current research interests are in AI Ethics, AI Education, Gender and IT, Open Source Software, Technology for Library Professionals, Women in STEM, Rural Libraries, Social Justice, Online Learning/Communities, Computer Supported Cooperative Work.
Dr. Singh teaches the core course in Information Technology, Usability Testing and Methods, Web Design, Information Networking Applications, and a wide range of topics as Independent Studies. Please read more details about her teaching here.
The Open Source ILS portal that she created as a product of an IMLS grant can be found here.
Dr. Singh received the CCI Service and Outreach Award in 2019. SIS did a story about Dr. Singh; please click on the image below to read the story.
Dr. Singh was a featured faculty during the faculty appreciation week at UTK https://faw.utk.edu/2019/02/06/vandana-singh/
Dr. Singh has received multiple research grants from federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the United States Geological Society (USGS). Her research has been published, recognized, and awarded in national and international conferences and journals. Please read more details about her research here.
*If you want to know how Vandana is pronounced, here is the pronunciation from pronouncenames.com!
Here is a youtube video if that might help, Or Dr. Singh is just fine 🙂