National Ranking

No. 9 in the nation, by U.S. News & World Report, in the specialty of archives and preservation offered by library and information studies programs.

Major Highlights

The new undergraduate minor in Informatics was launched in fall 2006, expanding opportunities for students to integrate computing and information into primary fields - such as Geography and Planning, Criminal Justice, and Communication - to produce a capstone experience in their major.

New undergraduate honors courses were introduced by the Computer Science and Information Studies Departments.

The second annual Informatics Spring Research Conference on New Trends in Informatics Research featured presentations by more than two dozen student and faculty researchers on their current work.

Awards and Recognition

Prof. Philip Eppard of the Department of Information Studies was elected a fellow of the Society of American Archivists, the highest honor given to members who have made outstanding contributions to the archival profession and the Society.

Assistant Professor Özlem Uzuner of Information Studies and her research team of undergraduate and graduate students combined to place second out of 44 teams in a national challenge competition for classifying medical texts.

Dr. Ashwin Satyanarayana received a University Distinguished Dissertation Award for his work in Computer Science on "Data Mining for Large Datasets: Intelligent Sampling and Filtering." Satyanarayana now works for Microsoft Research.

Yu-Hui Chen, a doctoral student in Information Science who is also a bibliographer and outreach librarian for education at the University Libraries, received an Initiatives for Women Presidential Award.

Grants

The Department of Information Studies joined with the New York State Library in a statewide recruitment project entitled "Making it REAL! Recruitment, Education, And Learning: Creating a New Generation of Librarians to Serve All New Yorkers." Funded by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, this effort is part of a broad plan to bring greater visibility and diversity to the field.

Peter Shea, an assistant professor in the Departments of Informatics and Educational Theory & Practice, was awarded a $260,000 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant to study ways to increase access to instruction and enhance student learning.