Susan Rodgers currently works for the Community Informatics Initiative as a Research Assistant. She received a B.A. in English and Rhetoric from the University of Illinois in the spring of 2007. This is Susan's second year at GSLIS and in the Community Informatics program. She is currently managing a group of more than 30 volunteers who provide assistance to patrons at the Urbana Free Library computer lab. Susan aims to take the knowledge she gains in the CI program and apply it to a career working with the public. In addition to working at CII and her courses, Susan is planning her wedding for next summer and raising a wonderful little puppy named Bowie.

CII Webmaster
srrodger@illinois.edu

Robin Yoerger Duple is a first year master's student at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. She holds a B.A. degree in Spanish and TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from the University of Northern Iowa and studied abroad for a semester in Oviedo, Spain. Robin taught English as a Second Language for two and a half years and worked at a public library for two years before coming to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Currently a research assistant for the Community Informatics Initiative, she has a strong interest in public librarianship and public library outreach, including diversity services. Robin believes that public libraries play a crucial role in supporting lifelong learning, fostering intercultural and intergenerational community ties, and improving the quality of life in the community.

Noelle Williams is currently a graduate assistant for the Community Informatics Initiative. She received her B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications from the University of South Carolina in May 2009. Noelle’s interests within the field of library science include civic engagement within the public library, international librarianship, and youth librarianship.

Eric Johnson is currently working for the Community Informatics Initiative as a Research Assistant. He holds a number of degrees, including a B.A. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Illinois and a Master's of Divinity from St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City. Eric has volunteered extensively with the Youth Community Informatics project. As a GA he works on writing and scheduling projects.

eojohnsn@illinois.edu

Youth Community Informatics
Research Assistants

Chera Kowalski is a first year Master's student studying Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. She attended Temple University for her Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Chera has a strong interest in public librarianship and in the development of youth services librarianship in independent and social libraries.

Chera is working with the IMLS grant funded Youth Community Informatics, which includes working with Youth Community Informatics sites, developing cross-site linkages, writing curriculum, and planing and delivering the Youth Community Informatics forum. Chera also enjoys volunteering, reading, and enthusiastically watching Project Runway.

kowalsk3@illinois.edu

Nama Raj Budhathoki is a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). His undergraduate and master degrees are in computer science and geographic information science (GIS) respectively. Before joining to the PhD program, he worked 5 years in multidisciplinary teams for building and implementing information systems. At UIUC, he taught a 400 level GIS course independently in Fall 2007. Since Spring 2008, he is working as a research assistant for youth community informatics (YCI) project, where he contributes to the development of learning materials on new media geospatial technologies. Currently, he is coordinating the project evaluation and is also working on a YCI book editing project.

His research interests lie at the intersection of GIS, information science, and social science. For the PhD dissertation, he is investigating users' motivational dynamics in the recent phenomenon of user-contributed geographic information (also called volunteered geographic information).

Chaebong Nam is a fourth year Ph.D student in the College of the Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her interest is service learning and community engagement. She joined the Youth Community Informatics since 2008 summer and is working for writing the YCI curriculum. One of the most precious times in her life was when Chaebong taught middle schoolers for three and half years in South Korea before coming to the U.S.A. for her doctoral study.

cnam2@illinois.edu

CII Fellows

Brent Walton is a second year Master’s student studying Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. Brent received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan in ’06. Through his engagement with community partners throughout Southwest Detroit Brent identified the importance for Community Informatics. Having the opportunity to work directly with the faculty and students within the CIC has allowed him to experience the importance of both CI curriculum and theory. Brent is interested in the “Psychology of Library and Information Science” and more importantly how do CI practitioners train themselves in order to facilitate ICT use within communities and empowering traditionally divided communities. This includes a comparative study between community partners in ESL vs. those in Chicago. Past research includes Community Technology Center development via LIS 451 in East St. Louis, compilation of an IL statewide CTC database, and the creation of a political social network in cyberspace.

Imani Bazzell has worked as a community educator and organizer in the areas of racial justice, gender justice, healthcare access, educational reform, and leadership development over 30 years. She is the founder and director of SisterNet, a local network of African American women committed to the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual health of Black women. In addition to her responsibilities as Director of At Promise…of Success, a collaboration between the Champaign Public Schools, the Community Academic Support Network and the University of Illinois dedicated to increasing the numbers of African American students engaging the secondary rigorous curriculum and prepared to attend the college of their choice, she serves as an independent consultant with public schools, colleges and universities, unions, non-profits, state and international agencies, and community-based organizations to promote organizational development and social justice.

Sorrel Goodwin is the Museum Registrar at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau, Alaska and a full-time LEEP student. He is married and has two daughters and lives in Douglas, Alaska, across the Gastineau Channel from Alaska's capital city. He is a citizen of the Auk Kwaan Tlingit Nation and a member of the Raven/Dog Salmon/Big Dipper Clan and is interested in Community Informatics in an Alaska Native and Indigenous context. He was the Archivist for the Sealaska Heritage Institute for five years and designed the Special Collections Research Center for this Alaska Native institution.

Aaisha Haykal is a 2009 Community Informatics Fellow and Spectrum Scholar starting her first-year at GSLIS. She graduated from Syracuse University in May 2009 with a BA in African-American Studies and English Textual Studies. Here at GSLIS she is pursing a Master of Science with a specialization in Community Informatics. Aaisha volunteers at the tech help desk at the Urbana Free Library and has a strong interest in working in libraries/archives/museums dedicated to Black history. This is important to her because she believes that there is a great need for Black communities to preserve and document their history because it often has been destroyed. In her down time she enjoys watching TV, reading romance novels and memoirs, taking walks, collecting panda figures, stuffed animals, and pictures, and researching information. Additionally, she love writing with pens with blue ink and hates using black ink.

Marcela Peres is a 2009 Community Informatics Fellow and first-year, full-time LEEP student.  She graduated in 2007 from Cornell University with a BA in Religious Studies and Psychology.  Between graduation and beginning at GSLIS, Marcela worked in psychosocial research with cancer patients at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, Florida, where she currently resides.  Marcela's future goals include working with child literacy/informatics issues in the public library setting, working with new immigrant families, and hopes to promote a love of reading in impoverished communities.  In her free time, she is an avid reader, writer, loves tomatoes and pasta but hates lettuce and ice cream, and often enjoys marathoning tv show dvds for hours at a time.  She also gets bit by the travel bug quite often, and longs for the semester she spent abroad in her birth country of Brazil.

Suzanne Im is a first year Master's student at GSLIS. Upon graduating from Occidental College with a B.A. in Politics, she went on to serve as an AmeriCorps volunteer for the University of California Office of the President, addressing educational access issues among K-12 youth. She followed up on this experience with editorial and curatorial work for an art historian, then found herself in the technical services department at a public library, where she realized librarianship was the embodiment of of her passions: community, technology, and literature. Her interests include the study of information in historic and political-economic contexts, especially in the area of globalization of information and communication technologies. She is also interested in researching how we understand and facilitate connections between readers/writers and text/information in order to cultivate a love of reading and imaginative vigor among youth, particularly with the onset of the "digital revolution".

Suzanne is simultaneously honored and humbled to be a fellow at the CII, and looks forward to volunteering and learning with everyone who is involved in the Institute. She enjoys reading, treasure hunting at thrift stores, and jogging slowly.

Other (GSLIS, hourly, funded elsewhere, etc)

Jeff Ginger is a PhD student studying and library & information science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also attended UIUC for several years previous where he fostered his love for sociology and disdain for math-focused computer science. He comes from a Science and Technology Studies (STS) anti-disciplinary background (the insurgents of sociology), has gobbled up a rather hefty helping of race/ethnicity studies (supplemented by intergroup dialogue), and is perhaps most famous for his research on Facebook.com. His current studies revolve around social & community informatics (SI & CI), battling the digital divide, and human-computer interactions (HCI) and his dissertation will likely be some blend of the three.

Jeff worked within the fold of the IMLS grant and the Community Informatics Initiative as a program evaluator, webmaster, and advisor for curriculum development during the 2008-2009 academic year. He also helps to run the Community Informatics Club, a social adjunct to the CI program and aids in other various CI projects in different capacities. In his free time Jeff occasionally makes websites, pretends to be an artist, records fun noises, and likes to teach.

ginger@illinois.edu

Claudia Serbanuta is a second year Master student at GSLIS. She comes from Romania where she got her Bachelor's degree in Computer Science at University of Bucharest and took some classes in Sociology and Social Work. Her research interests are East European public libraries, digital divide related issues in the European Union's Information Society with an emphasis on Romania. Claudia volunteered for the past 2 years in programs run by CI and currently has a research assistant position with Center for Global Studies and CI to maintain and develop iLabs, a web based software used by members in different communities. She is also involved in CI Club, is a member of Prolibro a Romanian librarian's group and a Romanian translator for International Children's Digital Library.

cserban2@illinois.edu