News

Two members of the UT Austin School of Information community have been named among the recipients of the UT President's 2026 Outstanding Staff Awards: current student Elista Street and double alumna Katie Pierce Meyer. They join a select group of 30 non-teaching university employees recognized this year for making outstanding contributions to the continuing success of the university. Recipients received a certificate and a $1,500 honorarium.

Fiona Romanoschi, a junior in the UT Austin School of Information's Informatics Program, has been named a Barry Goldwater Scholar for the 2026–2027 academic year. The Goldwater Scholarship is one of the most prestigious undergraduate awards in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, with just 454 students selected nationwide from a pool of more than 5,000 applicants this year.

On March 10, only days into the widening conflict in Iran, Dr. Lucy Suchman, professor emerita at Lancaster University (U.K.) and a towering figure in the field of human-computer interaction, delivered a guest lecture to iSchool Professor David Gray Widder’s doctoral seminar on Political Economy of AI Supply Chains. Suchman’s lecture, trenchant as it was timely, focused on the risks and often unacknowledged limitations of artificial intelligence as used in warfare.

Each year, the president of the University of Texas at Austin selects a Student Employee of the Year out of a set of finalists nominated by faculty and high-level staff. This year, iSchool graduate student Ishwari Garge reached the finalist stage. Although the top prize was eventually claimed by University Housing and Dining human resources student associate Sahithi Alla, we take this moment to salute Garge’s contributions to our school and her accomplishment in making finalist.

The 2026 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR) was held March 22-26 in Seattle, and the University of Texas School of Information was front and center, showcasing research excellence and leadership in the field. Several iSchoolers were in attendance as presenters, and two received awards. Please join us in congratulating the participants and winners!

Good Systems: Ethical AI at UT Austin is one of the three campus-wide Bridging Barriers Research Grand Challenges. Good Systems recently held an internal seed-funding competition for interdisciplinary faculty teams at UT pursuing projects at the convergence of AI design, human values, and societal need and three out of six grants were awarded to iSchool faculty: Angela D.R. Smith, Earl Huff, Jr., and Ying Ding.

We are pleased to announce career milestones for two iSchool professors, both of whom are leaders in their fields and highly valued members of our campus community. Dr. Min Kyung Lee has been recommended for tenure and promotion to associate professor, and Sarah Norris has been recommended for promotion to associate professor of practice.

The iSchool invited scholars and visitors into a hive of research energy last Friday Feb. 27, as doors opened on the annual Research Showcase event at the Texas Union on UT Campus. For those in attendance, three hours was scarcely enough time take in the dizzying depth and breadth of all the research projects on display. Still, a unifying narrative emerged: The iSchool’s researchers are forward-looking, collaborative, and focused not just on substantive findings but also on effective communication of what their work means and why it matters.

I am writing to all of you to provide some iSchool context to the news shared by President Davis about our moving under the umbrella of a new School of Computing within the College of Natural Sciences in the fall. The college and University have committed to maintaining all our current academic credentials for students and for prospective students and to bringing new resources to bear for faculty hiring, supports for our students, and interdisciplinary research co-led by our community.

Effective February 1 of this year, Prof. Ken Fleischmann will take the reins as incoming leader of the iSchool, leading the unit into its next phase. Fleischmann is a trusted and familiar face at the iSchool, a cutting-edge researcher on human-centered AI,and an experienced administrator at the iSchool and beyond.