Contact Information
FIMS Communications
Becky Blue
Email
519-661-2111x88493
FIMS & Nursing Building
Rm 2060C
No. 553 - July 8, 2026
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Coming Events:
- WL Workshop: Story Maps for Knowledge Mobilization
- WL Workshop: Demystifiying the Publishing Process
- WTS Workshop: Using AI for Operational Effectiveness
- Doctoral Public Lecture: Andre Wolmer de Melo
- WTS Workshop: Passwords - Best Practices
- WTS Workshop: Microsoft Teams - Adding Apps That Make Work Easier
- WL Workshop: Diversifying Citations and Perspectives
- FIMS Seminar Series: Sananda Sahoo -
Important Dates:
- Wednesdays - Western Farmers Market (10 AM - 2 PM, top of UC Hill)
- Month of July - Pride at Western (See events)
- Monday, August 3, 2026 - Civic Holiday (no classes, FIMS offices closed) -
Awards & Accomplishments:
- Emily Austin (MLIS'13)
- Juan Andrés Bello
- Jesse Butler
- Santasil Mallik
- Danica Pawlick-Potts
- Miyang Roh (MLIS'26)
- Bri Watson -
Publications & Presentations:
- Revna Altiok
- Chris Arsenault
- Alissa Centivany
- Leah Coyne
- Sara Falahatpisheh
- Takuya Maeda
- Selma Purac
- Bri Watson -
In the Media:
- Emily Austin (MLIS'13)
- Juan Andrés Bello
- Olivia Couchie
- Mary Ann Mavrinac (MLS'84)
- Anabel Quan-Haase
- Savannah Simon
- Luke Stark -
News from the FIMS Grad Library:
- Returning Director, Melanie Mills
- Upcoming Events at the Library
- Make of the Month -
Next Issue:
Coming Events
WL Workshop: Story Maps for Knowledge Mobilization
Wednesday, July 8, 2026
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Zoom (register)
Description: Story Maps are widely used across the world as a dynamic knowledge mobilization tool—transforming data, research, and stories into engaging, interactive web experiences. By blending maps with text, images, and multimedia, they make complex ideas accessible and impactful.
WL Workshop: Demystifying the Publishing Process
Wednesday, July 8, 2026
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Zoom (register)
Description: Written something you’re proud of and want to share it with the world? Just generally curious as to how articles that you’ve read got published? Wherever you’re at, this session will walk you through some of the behind-the-scenes processes that go into getting academic work published, like choosing a journal and the peer-review process.
WTS Workshop: Using AI for Operational Effectiveness
Thursday, July 9, 2026
10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Zoom (register)
Description: This "Using AI for Operational Effectiveness" session offers a practical look at integrating Copilot into your everyday workflows at Western University. Rather than focusing on the hype, this session provides straightforward, actionable strategies for streamlining routine processes, organizing information more efficiently, and securely applying AI to your daily tasks. It is designed for anyone looking for grounded, hands-on methods to support their team's operational goals and reduce time spent on repetitive tasks.
Doctoral Public Lecture: Andre Wolmer de Melo
Thursday, July 9, 2026
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Zoom (check your Western email for the link)
Description: Andre presents "Voices of Environmental (In)Justice: Hegemonic and Independent Media Narratives on the Traditional Fishing Community of Ilha de Deus (Recife, Brazil)." See poster.
WTS Workshop: Passwords - Best Practices
Tuesday, July 14, 2026
10:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
Zoom (register)
Description: Stronger passwords mean safer accounts. In this 30-minute session, you’ll learn how to create secure passwords, avoid common mistakes, and explore tools that make managing them easier. From passphrases to password managers, discover simple steps to protect your personal and work data.
WTS Workshop: Microsoft Teams - Adding Apps That Make Work Easier
Thursday, July 16, 2026
11:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Zoom (register)
Description: Wish MS Teams could do a bit more to support your day‑to‑day work? In this 30‑minute Knowledge Boost session, we’ll explore how adding Apps in Teams can help you organize information, support collaboration, and simplify recurring tasks. You’ll learn where to find Apps, how to add them, and how to decide which ones truly enhance your workflow—without adding clutter.
WL Workshop: Diversifying Citations and Perspectives
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Zoom (register)
Description: This workshop analyzes racial bias in reference lists and notes, what has come to be known as the "politics of citations". Library catalogues and databases generally do not provide metadata on race, gender, and ethnicity, how is it possible to discover multiple perspectives? Learn about how academic libraries are organized and strategies to develop more inclusive citation practices.
FIMS Seminar Series: Sananda Sahoo
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
12:00 p.m. - 1:20 p.m.
Attend in person: FNB 4130
Attend online: Zoom (watch for link in your email)
Presented by FIMS Postdoctoral Associate Sananda Sahoo as a special Summer Seminar. Title and abstract TBA.
Important Dates
- Wednesdays - Western Farmers Market (10 AM - 2 PM, top of UC Hill)- Month of July - Pride at Western (See events)
- Monday, August 3, 2026 - Civic Holiday (no classes, FIMS offices closed)
Awards & Accomplishments
Emily Austin's (MLIS'13) lastest novel, Is This a Cry for Help?, was included in the CBC's list of "30 Canadian books to read this Pride Month and beyond." The book is about a librarian who returns from medical leave to find book bans being proposed and the DEI policies under scrutiny.Assistant Professor Juan Andrés Bello won the 2026 "Best Use of Footage in a History Feature" award from FOCAL for his work as the Footage Archive Producer on the film True North. Previously the film has had a successful run in the festival circuit - TIFF, HotDocs, Doc NYC, Chicago International Film Festival, DC Dox and IDFA. Professor Bello attended the ceremony at Church House Westminster to receive the award. True North was co-produced by ITVS-Independent Lens and premiered on PBS on June 7. The FOCAL International Awards "celebrate the very best use of archival footage across the creative and cultural industries."
MLIS student and published poet Jesse Butler has been signed by Bonfire Books to write his second book of poems titled Continuing City & Other Poems. Jesse's award-winning first book of poems, The Living Law, was published in 2024.
Media Studies PhD Candidate Santasil Mallik has been awarded the 2026 Penny Rubinoff Fellowship by The Image Centre (IMC), Toronto Metropolitan University. Annually granted to PhD scholars working in the field of photography, this fellowship includes a stipend for travel, research, and engagement with the photography collections and resources at the IMC and the TMU Archives and Special Collections. Santasil will be conducting his project, 'Imaginaries of the Partition,' by researching IMC's Black Star Collection on-site from July onwards.
Assistant Professor Danica Pawlick-Potts (PhD'25, LIS) won the Canadian Association for Information Science Doctoral Dissertation Award for 2026 for her disseration titled, Classify, Communicate, Enforce: Territorializing Data for Indigenous Data Sovereignty in Research Data Repositories.
Miyang Roh (MLIS'26) won the Best Student Paper Award at CAIS 2026 for her paper titled, "Towards an Understanding of International Students' Engagement with Decolonization and Indigenization in LIS Pedagogy."
Assistant Professor Bri Watson received an honorable mention from the 2026 Open Scholarship Awards, sponsored by the Canadian Social Knowledge Institute, in the Emerging Open Scholarship category for their work with The Homosaurus Collective.
Publications & Presentations
Revna Altiok, Media Studies PhD candidate, recently presented a paper titled "Performing the In-between: Anime’s Mechanisms of Hybridity and Disruption" at the 36th Annual Society for Animation Studies Conference, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from June 15–18, 2026, where she talked about how anime utilizes nonhuman figures as complex allegories to deconstruct social binaries and critique power structures.
Revna also presented a paper titled "Exploitation and Othering in Urasawa’s Pluto: AI, Robots, and Capitalism" at the Journal of Anime and Manga Studies (JAMS) conference. The paper discusses how the series uses disposable robots to expose the cruelty of capitalism, showing that the system will always find a way to exploit living or sentient workers for profit and war.
The conference took place as part of Anime Expo 2026 (the largest anime convention in North America with over 400,000 attendees) from July 2–5, 2026, in Los Angeles, California.
Assistant Professor Chris Arsenault and MMJC student Leah Coyne posted the final episode of the How They Did It investigative journalism podcast series titled, "Behind the algorithm: How investigative journalists exposed Canada's listeria oversight failure." The episode is available on SoundCloud, Spotify and the How They Did It website. The write up is published on the J-Source website:
Coyne, L., & Arsenault, C. (2026, June 26). Behind the algorithm: How investigative journalists exposed Canada's listeria oversight failure. J-Source. https://j-source.ca/behind-the-algorithm-how-investigative-journalists-exposed-canadas-listeria-oversight-failure/
Associate Professor Alissa Centivany gave a keynote address at The Canadian Association of Professional Academic Libraries (CAPAL) 2026 conference, titled, "The Fight to Fix: Lessons From The Front of the Right to Repair Movement." The conference was virtual and ran June 22-23.
Sara (Zahra) Falahatpisheh, PhD candidate in Media Studies, presented parts of her dissertation proposal and literature review on International Students and Social Media Use at two conferences in Montreal and Halifax:
Takuya Maeda, MS PhD candidate, co-authored a publication titled "Safety Theater in Anthropomorphic AI: Why We Need to Shift from Safety to Accountability Narratives" in the Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT' 26), and he presented this work in Montreal (June 25–28).
He also gave a presentation titled "Agency and AI Systems" at the What the Antelope Knows Workshop on June 13.
Assistant Professor Selma Purac presented a paper at the Horror Studies Now conference in Newcastle, UK, at Northumbria University on May 29, titled "The Sound of Female Body Horror."
Professor Purac also gave a presentation titled, "Implementing a TA Professionalization Program: Incentivizing Teaching Development," at the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education on June 19.
Assistant Professor Bri Watson published a paper and participated in a panel at CAIS 2026 titled, "The/Le The Collaborative Canadian Catalogue/Le Catalogue canadien collaboratif" The paper was published in the Proceedings of the Annual Conference of CAIS Actes Du congrès Annuel De l’ACSI on June 15.
In the Media
MLIS'13 grad Emily Austin's latest novel, Is This A Cry for Help? was featured as part of Western News' "Seven summer reads from the Western community" article, published on June 19.
Assistant Professor Juan Andrés Bello was quoted in a CBC News article titled, "'The sadness is indescribable': Venezuelans in Ontario share concerns after back-to-back earthquakes," published on June 26.
Professor Bello also appeared as a guest on CBC Radio shows aired in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Sudbury and London on June 25 to talk about the earthquake emergency in Venezuela.
MLIS students Olivia Couchie and Savannah Simon were featured in an article titled, "Western Indigenous Student Fellowship recipients champion representation in library science, archival research," published by Western News on June 29 and written by MMJC intern Lauren daSilva.
Mary Ann Mavrinac (MLS'84, 2026 recipient of the FIMS Alumni Award of Excellence) was covered in an article titled "Kirkland Lake's Mary Ann Mavrinac receives prestigious award," published by a number of Northern Ontario newspapers like the Timmins Daily Press and the Kirkland Lake Northern News in June.
Professor Anabel Quan-Haase appeared on CBC Radio One's Just Asking with Saroja Coelho for a segment titled, "Intimate AI: The risks and appeals of bonding with bots," that aired on CBC stations across the country.
Assistant Professor Luke Stark provided expert comment for an article titled "Les « sites dopamine » : magasiner, juste pour le plaisir, sans rien recevoir," published by CBC Radio-Canada on July 1.
News from the FIMS Grad Library
Returning Director, Melanie Mills
After a two-year appointment as Associate Chief Librarian, Academic (Acting) with Western Libraries, Melanie Mills has returned to FIMS as Director, FIMS Graduate Library. Melanie looks forward to reconnecting with students, faculty, and staff at FIMS in support of our graduate programs and to meeting those who have joined the Faculty since May 2024. Pop by the FGL to say hello!
Upcoming Events at the Library
The FGL hosts workshops, lectures, and community events each term to support graduate teaching, learning, and research. Events are posted to our website (https://lib.fims.uwo.ca/events/) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/fimsgradlib/).
Friday Listening Hours at the Library
Bring your lunch and join us in the Reading Room for Sounds of Summer, a drop in vinyl listening series hosted by one of our Student Library Assistants. We’ll bring out records from our special collections and spin them over the lunch hour.
Kind of Blue, by Miles Davis
Date: Friday, July 10th, 2026
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Location: FIMS Grad Library Reading Room
Make of the Month – July 16 - Collage Bookmark Workshop
Join us at the library for one hour of mixed media collaging; no artistic experience required! This workshop invites participants to explore the wellbeing and creative benefits of collaging. Participants will combine magazine images, papers, stickers, and more to create a collaged bookmark. All materials are provided.
Date: July 16th, 2026
Time: 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Location: FIMS Graduate Library
Next Issue
The FIMS Bulletin is your source for news, announcements, and events pertaining to FIMS graduate programs. Submissions from the FIMS community are always welcome and may be sent via e-mail to fims-communications@uwo.ca.The final Summer issue of the FIMS Bulletin will be published on August 5. A regular publication schedule will resume in September.
