Members News, March 2026
ASIS&T would like to celebrate and recognize the accomplishments of members. Please share with us news of your tenure, promotion, doctoral defense, job change, publication and/or grant receipt. We will recognize these accomplishments in each issue of Inside ASIS&T.
Please complete this form to let us know what you've done!
Laureen Cantwell-Jurkovic started as the Humanities & Multidisciplinary Librarian at the Vassar College Libraries in Poughkeepsie, NY and is excited to connect with here students and faculty at her undergraduate alma mater in this role.
Lauren recently accepted an appointment to the editor team at Communications in Information Literacy and is excited to step into this leadership role and help maintain the reputation and great energy of this journal and its team.
Lauren's dissertation, "How Reference and Instruction Academic Librarians Engage in Caring Labor: A Mixed-Methods Study and Proposed Theory of Coactive Caring," University at Buffalo [advisor: Dr. Amy Vanscoy], 2024) won the 2025 ALISE/Eugene Garfield Dissertation Award, announced at the 2025 ALISE Annual Conference.
Timothy J. Dickey will be assuming a new role as Associate Professor and Director of the A.T. Wehrle Library at the Pontifical College Josephinum (Worthington, OH) in March 2026.
Catherine Dumas had a workshop accepted: Smart Training for Tough Moments: A VR/GenAI Tool for Public Library Staff. Public Library Association Conference. Minneapolis, MN, 1-3, April 2026. Williams, R., Dumas, C., Zhang, J, Borji, S. Jari, R., Nasierowski, M, & Stark, T.
Catherine also had a paper accepted to CHI (SAXR 2026): Steinfeld, N., Dumas, C., Porwol, L., & Jari, R. (Accepted). Exploring Intergroup Dynamics in Multi-User Social Virtual Reality Spaces using AI-driven Analytics. SAXR 2026 (Shaping Future Human Connection: Social Augmentation through XR Technologies – 1st Workshop edition at CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems). Barcelona, Spain, April 13-17, 2026.
Lorene Kennard is breaking ground on her podcast, The Librarian Linkover Podcast. They recently interviewed both ALA 2027-2028 Presidential candidates together on the same episode, which has never been done before. Their conversation will assist ALA members decide for whom to vote.
Dina Madan was accepted into the administrative studentship programme at CERN in Switzerland for one year. During this time, she will be pausing my MLIS studies at UCL. At CERN, she will work in the library and assist with a project focused on integrating AI into the library repository."
Sarah Polkinghorne published a paper outside our field recently, in a sociology journal. The paper shares findings from qualitative information practices research, and it speaks to everyday life, food practices, embodiment, and practice theory.
Polkinghorne, S. (2026). The dispersed practice of trial and error: understanding adaptation, improvisation and change across food practices. Health Sociology Review, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/14461242.2026.2620504
Nathan Rosen presented on Tips and Tricks in researching evidence in New York State and Federal Courts on Feb 26th at CLE program on Evidence: Foundations & Objections, jointly sponsored by Queens County Women’s Bar Association and Law Library Association of Greater New York. His book review was published in the Association of Jewish Libraries News & Reviews, Vol. 6, No. 3, Winter 2025, page 47.
Ronald Yaros: The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025 states that only about 48% of those surveyed are highly interested in news, a sharp decrease from previous years. Associate Professor Ronald Yaros at the University of Maryland says these trends reveal challenges in the presentation of content. “Journalism has relied on linear text as audiences encounter multimedia with fragmented time in mobile environments,” Yaros said. Drawing on research in human-computer interaction and journalism, his new book, The Digital Engagement Model, explores how content can be presented for both long-form and short-form consumption by diverse audiences that encounter, scan, and process digital information. Yaros discusses his model, which includes the new AI interface in an ASIS&T webinar on May 14.