arobinsonsweet@ucla.edu

Year Entered Program
2024

Advisor

Michelle Caswell

ctng@g.ucla.edu | LinkedIn

Year Entered Program
2024

Specialization

• Critical Data Studies, Computational Social Science, Computer Supported Cooperative Work

Teaching and Research Interests

Education

Research Center Affiliations

• LA Data Justice Hub

Advisors

Ramesh Srinivasan

djbarker@g.ucla.edu | LinkedIn | Website | CV

Year Entered Program
2022

Student Bio

Daryl Barker is a community college librarian who studies pedagogy and instruction with a particular focus on non-traditional students. This includes studying how MLIS students are prepared to teach as academic librarians. He has worked on interdisciplinary projects focusing on the intersection of LIS and political science and gender in media studies. He led a round table focused on making archival primary source material accessible for political science faculty to enrich their curriculum. He has also worked as a researcher for multiple not for profit organizations who study gender in media. As a doctoral student Daryl’s work has moved to focus on critical analysis of the role of data in society, understanding the nature of spatial/geographic distributions of physical infrastructure that supports emerging digital technologies.

Specialization

• Academic libraries and critical data studies

Teaching and Research Interests

• Pedagogy and Instruction
• Academic Libraries
• Critical Data Studies
• Interdisciplinary Social Science Research
• Community Colleges

Education

• Masters in Library and Information Studies, UCLA
• Digital Humanities, Graduate Certificate, UCLA
• Politics, BA, Occidental College

Select Publications

• “Using Library Instruction to Teach LGBTQ Politics,” Book Chapter, Peer Reviewed Edited Volume, SUNY Press, Accepted (Fall 2024 expected publication)
• “Leading in Lavender: LGBTQ Representation in the US”, Essay, Edited Volume, Bloomsbury Press, Accepted (Winter 2025 expected publication)

Advisors

Robert D. Montoya

Gregory Leazer

jkabbott@ucla.edu | LinkedIn | CV

Year Entered Program
2020

Student Bio

Jeremy Abbott (he/him) is a librarian and lawyer, currently pursuing a doctorate in UCLA’s Department of Information Studies, where he researches the “public” in public libraries, examining spatial control, legal infrastructures of information, and how we can build more just and inclusive visions of both information access and the civic public. His other research interests include epistemic justice, the political economy of homelessness, liberatory leisure visions of the public library, and decarcerating libraries.

Specialization

History of United States public library access

Teaching and Research Interests

• Public space and publicness
• Library regulation and policing
• Leisure uses of public libraries
• Library automation, surveillance, and technology adoption
• History and theory of copyright

Education

• MLIS, UCLA
• JD, George Washington University
• BA, History, English, Classics, Northwestern University

Awards, Honors, and Fellowships

• UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy – 2022-2023 UCLA Graduate Student Working Group Grant
• California Public Library Staff Education Program, California State Library – 2019-2020 Grant Recipient

Publications

• Montoya, Robert D., Jeremy Abbott, Michelle Caswell, Gregory H. Leazer, Safiya Noble, and Carlin Soos. “Examining Concepts of the Public: Who Is Served by Information Services?” In Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 58:619–21, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.512.
• Abbott, Jeremy. “Towards the Slow Library.” Critical Theory and Information Studies (blog), March 21, 2021. http://criticaltheoryis.blogspot.com/2021/03/towards-slow-library-jeremy-abbott.html.

Research Centers

• California Rare Book School (CalRBS)
• Library, Ethics, & Justice Lab

Advisor

Gregory Leazer

sunjiarui@ucla.edu

Year Entered Program
2024

Student Bio

Jiarui Sun is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA. His research interests include digital recordkeeping & archival informatics, information resource management & digital government, community-based archives, and qualitative research methods & design. Specifically, his current work focuses on the ethical considerations triggered by technology applications in archives.

Teaching and Research Interests

• Digital Recordkeeping and Archival Informatics
• Information Resource Management and Digital Government
• Community-Based Archives
• Qualitative Research Methods and Design

Awards, Honors, and Fellowships

• Oliver Wendell Holmes Award, Society of American Archivists 2021
• Ed&IS Summer Research Funding, School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA 2020
• James V. Mink Scholarship, Society of California Archivists 2020
• Dean’s Scholar, School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA 2019
• Tung-Li & Hui-His Yuan Family Fellowship, School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA 2019

Research Centers

• UCLA Center for Digital Humanities

Advisor

Anne J. Gilliand

kainham@g.ucla.edu | Website

Year Entered Program
2024

Student Bio

As a queer and trans Chinese-Vietnamese son of a refugee from Vietnam and immigrant from Hong Kong, Kai is deeply interested and committed to how our communities can imagine and build new worlds for ourselves. His current research interests include how information infrastructures help build and maintain trans of color care webs, as well as the development of grassroots and community-based interventions and technologies to resist violence and build new futures.

Teaching and Research Interests

• Information Infrastructure
• Care Ethics
• Critical Data Studies
• Trans Studies

Education

• Master of Information and Data Science, University of California, Berkeley
• Bachelor of Arts, University of California, Berkeley

Publications

• Haimson, Oliver L, Kai Nham, Hibby Thach, and Aloe DeGuia. “How Transgender People and Communities Were Involved in Trans Technology Design Processes,” 2023.

Advisor

Safiya U. Noble

mril3y@g.ucla.edu | CV | Website

Year Entered Program
2020

Student Bio

Bay Area born-and-raised doctoral student in UCLA’s Department of Information Studies focusing on the political economy and critical history of public libraries, particularly around labor and carceral issues. Graduate of UCLA’s MLIS program in 2020, focusing on labor issues in LIS, special collections and archives; co-president of SAA @ UCLA and co-chair of UCLA’s SCA student chapter, 2019-2020. Committed to police- and policing-free libraries and building public infrastructure and community outside of carcerality.

Specialization

• Critical history of the US public library

Teaching and Research Interests

• labor issues and organizing in libraries and archives
• policing and carcerality in libraries and archives
• critical infrastructure studies
• public library history

Education

• B.A. in Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley (2011)
• MLIS, UCLA, 2020

Publications

• “The Stories We Tell: Precarious Labor and Archival Myths” May 2020 Acid Free’s “Fictions” issue, published by the Los Angeles Archivists Collective. https://www.laacollective.org/work/precarious-labor-archival-myths

Research Center Affiliations

• Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (c2i2)

Advisor

Sarah Roberts

nschwiet@ucla.edu | Website

Year Entered Program
2020

Student Bio

Specialization

• Informatics
• aesthetics
• philosophy of information

Awards, Honors and Fellowships

Teaching and Research Interests

Education

• MLIS, 2020

Publications

Research Center Affiliations

Advisor

newood42@g.ucla.edu | CV

Year Entered Program
2022

Student Bio

Nicole is a doctoral student in the UCLA Department of Information Studies. Her research focuses on archive and library collections as a source of environmental proxy data for granular, historical climate modeling. This research is supported by an undergraduate degree in English literature and master’s degrees in information studies and environmental informatics. Her past work on the American Chestnut Blight in Tennessee will soon be available through a forthcoming Archival Science journal article. Nicole is currently completing research on 19th-century California rainfall, which is funded by the Huntington Library, Botanical Garden, and Museum. A preview of findings will be shared at the 2025 International Digital Curation Conference. When not in class, Nicole can be found hiking in the San Bernardino Mountains or practicing the banjo.

Specialization

• My research focuses on the environmental data recorded in primary sources, such as diaries, letters, and newspaper articles. These documents include references to weather events at a specific time and location and can provide data points that inform a larger dataset for digital reconstruction and modeling to visualize variable fluctuations over time at a more granular scale than the natural record. Through case studies, I seek to identify best practices for organizing, digitizing, and describing materials suited for the study of environmental history and to engage emerging technologies in facilitating easy, large-scale retrieval of data from sources traditionally siloed for qualitative use

Awards, Honors and Fellowships

• Michael J. Connell Foundation Fellowship, Huntington Library
• Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Program, University of California, Los Angeles
• GIS Librarians for Open Workflows (GLOW) Forum Travel Funding
• Wasserman Dean’s Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles

Teaching and Research Interests

• Archive and library collections as environmental proxy data
• Environmental humanities
• Historical climate modeling

Education

• B.A. in English Literature, Trevecca Nazarene University (2014)
• M.S. in Information Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2016)
• P.S.M. in Environmental Informatics, Tennessee Tech University (2022)

Publications

• “Archive and Library Special Collections as Proxy Data: Reconstructing the American Chestnut Blight through Digitized Collections.” Archival Science. Accepted, but not yet published.

Research Center Affiliations

Advisor

Anne J. Gilliland

psantachiara@ucla.edu | LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

Year Entered Program
2024

Student Bio

Pietro Santachiara is the Bernard and Martin Breslauer Fellow and a Ph.D. student in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA. His research deals with knowledge organization and modeling, classification of cultural heritage artifacts, and digital humanities.

Education

• MLIS; University of California, Los Angeles
• M.Sc. in Communication, Technology-Enhanced Communication for Cultural Heritage; University of Lugano (Switzerland)
• B.A. in Communication Studies, Mass-media concentration; University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy)

Publications

• Drucker, J., Polack, P., & Santachiara, P. (2022). Heterochronologies: A Platform for Correlation and Research in Temporal Graphics. Digital Humanities Quarterly, 16(3).

Research Centers

• UCLA Digital Humanities Center

Advisor

Johanna Drucker

seul@g.ucla.edu | Website

Year Entered Program
2019

Student Bio

Seul Lee is a doctoral candidate in Information Studies at UCLA, holding a B.A. in Management Information Systems, an M.A. in Data Science, and a graduate certificate in Digital Humanities. Her research interests involve investigating the intricate landscape of information biases, algorithmic subjectivities, and the pivotal role of digital literacy education in fostering a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of biases behind the presentation of online information. The focus of her dissertation is on user-generated content, specifically examining the components that contribute to biases and mis/disinformation, as well as their impact on information behaviors. She has been working as a graduate student researcher for the Social Media and the Spread of Hate (SMASH) team, a project funded by the UCLA Initiative for the Study of Hate, to combat online hate speech by collaborating with middle and high school students in the US.

Specialization

• Information Bias in Machine Learning

Teaching and Research Interests

• Information Bias in Machine Learning
• Digital Literacy; Information Credibility Assessment
• Social Media Studies; Internet Studies
• Data Science; Digital Humanities

Education

• M.A. Big Data in Culture and Society, King’s College London

Publications

• Lee, S., & Gilliland, A. (2024). Evolving definitions of hate speech: The impact of a lack of standardized definitions. In I. Sserwanga et al. (Eds.), Wisdom, well-being, win-win (pp. 141–156). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57860-1_11
• Lee, S. (2023). Understanding the Intricacies of Academic Search Engines. Proceedings of the Digital Humanities Congress 2022 Retrieved from https://www.dhi.ac.uk/books/dhc2022/understanding-the-intricacies-of-academic-search-engines/

Research Center Affiliations

• UCLA Initiative to Study Hate
• UCLA Social Media and the Spread of Hate (SMASH)

Advisor

Anne J. Gilliland

tianji008@ucla.edu | CV | LinkedIn

Year Entered Program
2024

Student Bio

Tianji Jiang is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, advised by Professor Sarah T. Roberts. He is also an assistant student researcher at Richard C. Rudolph East Asian Library. Prior to joining UCLA, Tianji obtained a B.M. (2019) in Information Management and Information System and a B.Ec. (2019) in Economics from Peking University.

Teaching and Research Interests

• Knowledge Organization
• Research Data Curation
• Library Management
• User Study
• Social Media Studies

Awards, Honors, and Fellowships

• China’s National Scholarship for Undergraduate Student in the year of 2017-2018

Education

• Bachelor of Management in Information Management and Information System, Department of Information Management, Peking University (2019)
• Bachelor of Economics, The National School of Development, Peking University (2019)

Publications

• Jiang, T., & Li, L. Q. (2021). Image-building of Public Library from Readers’ Perspective A Case Study on the Northern Haidian Library, accepted by and will be presented at iConference 2021.
• Jiang, T., Zhang Y., & Zhou, Q. (2021). A Research on the Improvement Strategy of Big Data Industry Policy made by Local Government in China. Journal of Modern Information 41(2), 132-140, 161.

Advisor

Jonathan Furner