News & notes from around FIMS - December 2016

News from Alumni


Sarah Bugeja, BA'10 (MIT), Matt Callahan, BA'11 (MIT) and Hailey Nemoy, BA'12 (MIT), were all recently named to MarketingMag.ca's 30 Under 30. Sarah is currently the Manager, demand generation, for Loblaw Digital, Matt is a marketing manager for CentriLogic, and Hailey is a Social Media Specialist with Bell Canada.

Lisa Given was recently elected as the incoming president of the Association for Information Science and Technology. Given is a professor of Information Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Education, Charles Sturt University, Australia. She is a Research Fellow of the Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education and has served on the College of the Australian Research Council. She is an Adjunct Professor in Humanities Computing and in Education at the University of Alberta, Canada, where she worked from 2000-2011. A former Director of the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology, Given has received numerous grants and awards. Her research interests include individuals’ information behaviours, web usability, social media use, health informatics, information literacy and qualitative inquiry. She coauthored (with Donald O. Case) the latest edition of Looking for Information: A survey of research on information seeking, needs, and behaviour (Emerald, 2016) and authored 100 Questions (and Answers) About Qualitative Research (Sage, 2016). Given graduated from FIMS with her PhD in 2001 and MLIS in 1996.

Mike Bickerton, MIT alum and producer for CTV's The Amazing Race Canada, was part of the team that recently won a number of 2016 Canadian Screen Awards for the latest season of the show.

Clara Chu, MLIS alumna, has been appointed the ALA Representative to the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. Read more.

Gabe Elias, MA'13 (Media Studies), was interviewed on Breakfast Television on July 26 about why he's campaigning abroad for the Democrats. Gabe's interview starts at about 1:55 of the linked video.

Awards & Accomplishments

Angela Pollak, LIS PhD graduate and current MLIS instructor, has been awarded a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Alberta. Read the announcement from the University of Alberta.
 
The winners of the Spirit of Librarianship and Fantastic FIMS awards for the summer 2016 term were announced in August. MLIS student Arielle Vanderschans won the Spirit of Librarianship award, and staff member Becky Blue won the Fantastic FIMS award. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees.

A recent publication by Elaine Zibrowski, HIS PhD candidate, "To submit or not submit: The burden of evaluation on postgraduate medical trainees" has been recognized by the Association of Medical Educators of Europe (AMEE), as one of its top-rated research articles since its publication in August 2016.

Congratulations to Meredith Levine, Victoria L. Rubin (FT faculty), Robert Craig, Selma Purac and Warren Steele (PT faculty), who were announced as the winners of the 2016 Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching. The winners were announced at Faculty Council on October 19, with the recipients being presented with certificates.

In the Media

Anabel Quan-Hasse, Associate Professor, was quoted in the London Free Press article, “Beyond Movies closing at the end of summer, leaving Jumbo Video as last video rental store in London,” on June 29.
 
Nicole Dalmer, LIS PhD candidate, was featured in the London Free Press article "Writers who write together, write more," published on Sunday, August 14. The article highlights the FIMS writing group developed by Dalmer to help drive productivity and peer support for thesis-based grad students and faculty.

Marni Harrington, FIMS Librarian, was quoted in the article "Digital Freedom is Intellectual Freedom for Canadian Library", published on ProQuest's blog on October 25. The article discusses how and why the GRC's Tor relay was implemented, in response to digital privacy concerns.

Amanda Grzyb, Associate Professor, appears in the article "MSU history professor Molly Todd collaborates with Canadian and Salvadoran colleagues to begin pilot project in El Salvador", published on the Montana State University website on October 25. The article outlines an ongoing research project titled, "Refugees and Surviving Memory in Post-Civil War El Salvador."

Additional Activities of Note

Plotting the Reading Experience
Professors Lynne McKechnie and Paulette Rothbauer had their book, titled Plotting the Reading Experience: Theory/Practice/Politics, published in June. The book was edited in collaboration with professors Kjell Ivar Skjerdingstad and Knut Oterholm of Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences in Norway.

Tracey Church and Izabela Piasecka-Latour, both FIMS lecturers in the MLIS program, were involved in the publication of the book Prospect Research in Canada: An Essential Guide for Researchers and Fundraisers. Church served as co-editor and contributor, while Piasecka-Latour is a contributor.

Recipients for SSHRC grants were recently announced. FIMS faculty members were among the recipients:
  • Ajit Pyati (co-applicant): “Optimizing the provision of information to facilitate the settlement and integration of refugees in Canada: case studies of Syrian refugees in London, Ontario and Calgary, Alberta.”
  • Grant Campbell: “Information Paradigms in Social Interactions with Cognitively-Impaired Individuals”
  • Amanda Grzyb: “’Surviving Memory’ in Post-Civil War El Salvador: A Pilot Study”
  • Romayne Smith Fullerton: “Democracy defined or detonated”
  • Romayne Smith Fullerton (co-applicant): “The Meaning of Community-Based Wind Energy: Learning from Success”
  • Jacquie Burkell (collaborator): “In machines we trust – developing frameworks for the governance of machines with artificial intelligence”
Paul Benedetti, FIMS lecturer, published a multimedia story in the Hamilton Spectator on September 17 titled, "Perrin investigation: Murder, lies and justice denied". The story, which revisits a murder case that opened in 1989, includes a photo slideshow, timeline and video.

Sonya de Laat, Media Studies PhD candidate, had a series of her photographs published in the June 2016 edition of the Hamilton Arts and Letters Magazine, Issue 9.1, 2016: Portfolio: Barton Village Series.

Sonya also has an entry entitled, "Congo Free State, 1904: Humanitarian Photographs," in the online “Atlas on Humanitarianism and Human Rights."

Recent Defenses

Charlotte Britten, MA in Media Studies student, successfully defended her thesis, “Finding Your Way: Navigating Online News and Opinions” on Tuesday, July 19.

Daniel Onaifo, LIS PhD candidate, successfully defended his doctoral disseration, titled "Alternate Academy: Investigating the Use of Open Educational Resources by Students at Institutions of Higher Education in sub-Saharan Africa" on Wednesday, July 27.

David Jackson, Media Studies PhD candidate, successfully defended is dissertation titled, “Becoming Sonic: Ambient Poetics and the Ecology of Listening in Four Militant Sound Investigations” on Wednesday, September 14.

Atle Kjøsen, Media Studies PhD Candidate, successfully defended his dissertation, titled “Capital’s Media: The Physical Conditions of Circulation” on Monday, September 26.

Jessica Fanning, MA in Media Studies student, successfully defended her thesis “Shifting Temporalities: The Construction of Flexible Subjectivities through Part-time Retail Workers’ Use of Smartphone Technology” on Thursday, October 6.

Trent Cruz, Media Studies PhD Candidate, successfully defended his thesis titled, "Creative Management: Disciplining the Neoliberal Worker" on Friday, October 21.

Stephanie Simpson, Master of Health Information Science student, successfully defended her thesis "The Development and Implementation of the Off-Premise Outlet Density Expansion Initiative within Ontario's New Beer Framework: A Case Study" on Friday, October 28.

Jessica Thom, PhD in Media Studies candidate, successfully defended her thesis "Believing the News: Exploring How Young Canadians Make Decisions About Their News Consumption" on Monday, October 31. (Link not yet available)

Lisa Di Valentino, PhD in Library and Information Science candidate, successfully defended her thesis "Laying the Foundation for Copyright Policy and Practice in Canadian Universities" on Tuesday, November 29. (Link not yet available)