Director-at-Large, Karen Fisher



Karen Fisher

Karen Fisher is a Professor in the University of Washington Information School and Chair of The Information & Society Center (ISC). She teaches and conducts research on how people experience information as part of everyday life, with emphasis on the role of informal social settings in information flow, as well as the broad impacts of information and communication technologies. Co-author of the forthcoming monograph Digital Inclusion: Communicating Impact through Practice and Research, and the (2005) monograph Theories of Information Behavior, with M. Crandall she is currently studying the benefits of free access to computers and the Internet in public libraries—a mixed methods, nation-wide study supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Her past funders include the National Science Foundation, Microsoft Research, the United Way of America, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Recipient of the 2005 and 2008 Jesse H. Shera Award for Distinguished Published Research from the American Library Association, Karen has also been recognized for her research by the American Society for Information Science & Technology, and the Association for Library and Information Science Education. An alum of the University of Western Ontario (PhD & MLIS) and Memorial University of Newfoundland (BA), she held a postdoc at the University of Michigan, chaired the UW iSchool’s Master of Library and Information Science program (2004-08); and was a Visiting Researcher at Microsoft Research, and a NORSLIS Visiting Professor at Oslo University College, Norway. In 2005-06 Karen was chair of ASIST SIG USE and has since served as treasurer—receiving the ASIST SIG Member of the Year Award in 2008. She also served on the search committee for the new editor of JASIST (2007-08) and on the program committees for the 2009 and 2004 Annual Meetings. Other service include the international program committees for ISIC: The Information Behavior Conference and i3: Information: Interactions and Impact; as well as information behavior track chair for IIiX 2010 Symposium on Information Interaction in Context, co-program chair of the 2010 iSchool Conference and program chair of the 2011 iSchool Conference.