Jia Tina Du

Jia Tina Du is an Associate Professor of Information Studies and Director of the Information and Innovation Laboratory at the University of South Australia. Her Lab has hosted 21 international visiting scholars and collaborators from the United States, New Zealand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and China since 2014. She earned her Ph.D. from Queensland University of Technology, Australia. She was awarded the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (ARC DECRA), a prestigious and highly competitive national research fellowship, and a visiting research fellowship at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK. Her research interests are in applied and interdisciplinary studies related to information behavior, interactive information retrieval, marginalized communities, and social impact of digital technologies. Her research has resulted in over 110 peer reviewed publications in journals such as JASIS&T, IP&M, JIS, OIR, JDoc, and L&ISR, and conferences such as ASIS&T, SIGIR, CHIIR, and iConference.

Tina has been actively serving the information science community both in Australia and internationally. She is Past Chair of the ASIS&T Asia Pacific Chapter (2019-2020), which was awarded the ASIS&T Chapter of the Year in 2019. She is a member of the ASIS&T Chapter Assembly Advisory Steering Committee and the Research Advisory Committee for the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), and served on the 2019-20 ASIS&T President Advisory Group. She has been a part of various juries, e.g., JASIST Best Paper Award and ASIS&T ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation Award. She is a member of ASIS&T, ACM, and ALIA. She is active in organizing conferences, serving as a conference chair for the ASIS&T Asia Pacific Regional Conference 2019 and 2020, and paper co-chair of the ASIS&T Annual Meeting 2020, conference program committee for Australasian Conference on Research Applications in Information and Library Studies (RAILS) 2017, 2018, and 2019, and doctoral consortium co-chair of the Australasian Conference on Information Systems 2015.

She has been a guest editor for JASIST and IP&M, leading three special issues and is a member of the editorial board for IP&M, Online Information Review, Aslib Journal of Information Management, Information and Learning Sciences, Libri, and Data and Information Management. She was awarded the outstanding reviewers award for IP&M, Aslib and OIR. Tina has received a number of recognitions for her contributions to the research field and broader community, including Fellow of the South Australian Governor’s Leadership Foundation in 2017, the 2018 South Australian Winnovation (Women in Innovation) Award, and the 2019 South Australian Young Tall Poppy of Science Award, recognising her excellence in academic achievement, research impact, science communication and community engagement. She was named the top researcher in Library & Information Science within the Engineering & Computer Science category by The Australian’s Research 2020 Magazine. Her teaching has covered a range of courses in digital information management, human information behavior, and research methods. Her academic profile can be found at https://people.unisa.edu.au/tina.du

I have been actively engaged in research dissemination, chapter and SIG leadership and committee service within ASIS&T since 2007. In the past two years I served as the conference co-chair of the ASIS&T Asia Pacific Regional Conference, paper co-chair of the ASIS&T Annual Meeting 2020, moderated the President’s Hour with four former ASIS&T Presidents on addressing society’s grand challenges, organized the Conference President Welcome Reception, and served on the 2019-20 ASIS&T President Advisory Group. I also hosted ASIS&T webinars, provided mentoring for young professionals and letters of support for ASIS&T award nominations, and served on the JASIST Best Paper Award and ASIS&T ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation Award juries.

As a regional leader, my service in the ASIS&T Asia Pacific Chapter involved being secretary (2017-2018), chair-elect (2018-2019) and chair (2019-2020). The Asia Pacific Chapter was awarded the ASIS&T Chapter of the Year in 2019. I also served on the ASIS&T Chapter Assembly Advisory Steering Committee.

I have extensive experience studying and working in China and Australia, with chapter leadership in the Asia Pacific region, as well as co-authorships and networks in North America and Europe. Our international community at ASIS&T is our strength. It’s about collaboration, commercialization, and co-design of research, programs and technologies which can lead to positive impacts on people’s lives and our businesses as well. If elected Director-at-Large, I will commit to implement the priorities put forward in the ASIS&T strategic plan 2020-2025, including:

• Facilitate broad and deep participation from existing members on concerned issues and solutions, led by distinguished members in both the Global North and South.
• Promote ASIS&T and inspire more scholars, practitioners, and students to join ASIS&T through a mentoring program.
• Strengthen partnerships and collaborations between SIGs and regional Chapters.
• Translate empirical evidence into actionable recommendations and convey conclusions for different audiences and stakeholders through cooperation with affiliate information associations and global organizations.
• Improve ASIS&T publications through authors and/or reviewers development workshops organized by JASIST and other LIS journals that can be held at ASIS&T Annual Meetings, symposia, or webinars.
• Battle racism, violence, and other systems of oppression and promote diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and antiracism through panels and case studies.

We cannot achieve sustainable development and make the planet better for all if people are excluded from opportunities, services, and the chance for a better life. I truly believe ASIS&T, as the leading international information science society, can play a stronger role in promoting equal opportunities and advancing information for a sustainable world.