Our faculty and students are revealing new insights on some of the most pressing questions at the nexus of information, technology, and society. This fall’s research highlights span critical examinations of equity in science journalism and immigration enforcement, innovative studies of online learning communities, and fascinating work on the dynamics of digital healthcare environments. Here’s a glimpse what the iSchool community has been publishing recently:
Health Informatics and Science Communication
📺Assistant Professors Chaoqun Ni and Ian Hutchins, with PhD students Salsabil Arabi and Xiang Zheng, published “Equity in Science Journalism: Investigating Gender Disparities in News Media Coverage of Scientific Research” in Science Communication. Drawing on 1 million publications, the team found that women-led research receives fewer media mentions and is cited less frequently, with men-led papers often associated with more positive sentiment in media coverage. Read the article. (The research was also covered in Science magazine.)
🩺Assistant Professor Adam Rule is the lead author of a newly published article, “Primary care physicians’ experiences with inbox triage,” in the journal JAMIA Open. The study reveals that managing electronic health record inboxes is a continuous, collaborative process requiring physicians to constantly evaluate clinical urgency, time constraints, and team dynamics. Read the article.
🪧PhD student Roxy Velazquez won the Top Poster award at the International Conference on Communication in Healthcare (ICCH), selected from more than 100 submissions. Her research examines how language choices in clinical documentation—including judgmental terms, confusing jargon, and errors—can erode patient trust and discourage care-seeking. See her poster.
Data and Information Ethics
📂Professor Alan Rubel is the co-author of “The ICE–Lexis nexus: An argument against use of commercial databases in immigration enforcement,” published in Big Data & Society. The article argues that ICE’s use of commercial databases like Accurint for immigration enforcement violates fundamental principles of autonomy and agency, particularly when applied to noncriminal immigration violations. Read the article.
🔗Distinguished Teaching Faculty Dorothea Salo is the co-author of “The Ethics of Sustaining Linked Data Infrastructure,” a chapter in the book “Ethics in Linked Data” published by Library Juice Press. The chapter argues that maintenance and sustainability should be core ethical responsibilities in linked data development, as the failure of one project can cascade to damage interconnected vocabularies and systems, particularly harming those without expertise to adapt quickly. Read the chapter.
Digital Culture and Technological Development
📖Associate Professor Reginold Royston has published a new book, “Pan-African Futurism: Ghana and the Paradox of Technology for Development,” with University of California Press. Through ethnographic research with software developers and digital diaspora communities, the book explores how Ghanaian technologists are redefining technology not merely as a tool for economic growth, but as a means for greater African political autonomy and self-determined development. Learn more and purchase it online.
Human-Computer Interaction
📍PhD student Yaxuan Yin and Assistant Professor Jacob Thebault-Spieker have published “The Effect of Population Density on Remote Humanitarian Mapping Activities: A Triple-Difference Analysis” in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. The study examines how population density affects volunteer contributions to humanitarian mapping projects, revealing patterns that may inform more equitable mapping efforts in disaster-prone regions. Read the article.
🗣️Assistant Professor Corey Jackson has published two new articles examining learning and socialization in the citizen science project Gravity Spy: “Leveling Up or Dropping Out: Searching for Learning Routines in Crowdsourced Environments” in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, and “Please Say ‘Shibboleth’: Socialization Through Language Adoption in Virtual Citizen Science” in Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media. The research reveals how volunteers learn through different engagement patterns as tasks become more complex, and how adopting community language practices serves as a key marker of retention. Read “Please Say ‘“Shibboleth’”.