2026 NEASIS&T Conference Support Awardees
The US Northeast Chapter (NEASIS&T) is thrilled to announce the 2026 recipients of our Conference Support Award, which supports participation in the ASIS&T 2026 Annual Meeting. The meeting will be held in Bangkok, Thailand from November 6-10, 2026.
The award aims to support scholarship and connect research and practice by bringing new voices to the chapter. The award will cover a year-long membership in ASIS&T, conference registration for the 2026 ASIS&T Annual Meeting, and enrollment fees for pre/post-meeting workshops and tutorials, up to a total reimbursement limit of $1000 per recipient.
Mizanur Rahman (University at Albany, SUNY)
Mizanur Rahman is a Ph.D. candidate in Information Science at the UAlbany. He is also an adjunct faculty member there, teaching information systems, databases, and cybersecurity-related courses. Occasionally, Mizanur is involved in community and social activities, helping organizations host social and cultural events.
He also serves as an Information Technology Specialist (Database Administrator) with the New York Office of the State Comptroller. He served as the Founding Chair of the ASIS&T UAlbany Graduate Student Chapter from 2023 to 2024, contributing to its establishment and fostering student engagement in the information science community. His current research explores the integration of federated learning with FDNA and time-series analytics to enhance the detection, analysis, and mitigation of cyber threats across distributed and interconnected systems.
Syeda Shahid (Towson University)
Dr. Shahid is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Learning Technologies, Design, and School Library Media at Towson University. She is committed to designing and teaching courses focused on information and research literacy, as well as school library media. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she mentorsstudents on their professional and research projects.
Her research interests include information literacy instruction, various forms of literacy, and the use of technology tools and innovative instructional methods, with a particular emphasis on school libraries. She is passionate about learning qualitative research methods and data analysis strategies.
Dr. Shahid has been a longstanding member of ASIS&T and has served in several leadership roles, including Chapter Chair, Program Committee Poster Chair, and Co-Chair.
Xiaofeng Li (PennWest University)
Xiaofeng Li is an Associate Professor in the Department of Library and Information Science at PennWest University, Clarion. She holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Communication, Information, and Library Studies from the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University. Her research interests include youth information behavior, information literacy, and the development of information resources and services for young people. Her current research focuses on adolescents’ mental health information behavior. She teaches a wide range of courses, including Organization of Information, Introduction to Youth Services, and Integrated Technologies in Libraries.
Nayana Kirasur (Rutgers University)
Nayana Kirasur is a doctoral candidate at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information. Her work explores how everyday information technologies — such as documents, data, and social media — shape power and inequality. She is particularly interested in how these technologies both reinforce and resist structures of oppression related to caste, gender, and geography in India.
Her work draws on theoretical frameworks and qualitative methods across disciplines, including Information Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Cultural Studies. Her current projects examine data-driven governance in rural India and understanding the role of social media in circulating discourses around caste and gender. With these lines of inquiry, she hopes to further ground and critical caste analysis framework in the fields she draws upon.