Collaboration is key for Carolina’s newest school

Exterior view of Manning Hall on campus of U.N.C. Chapel Hill placed above a Carolina Blue and white graphic background with an argyle pattern. — SDIS brings together longstanding excellence in information and library science with leadership in data science, including computational and statistical methods, and societal applications.

Collaboration is central to UNC-Chapel Hill’s decision to create its newest school, the UNC School of Data and Information Sciences.

SDIS launches today, combining the expertise of the UNC School of Data Science and Society and the UNC School of Information and Library Science to position Carolina as a national leader in scholarship on and the teaching of information, library and data sciences.

Here’s a look at ways the two units forming SDIS have already collaborated.

Dual appointments

Francesca Tripodi and Arcot Rajasekar are two professors who were on faculty at SILS while also developing the core content for courses in the Master of Applied Data Science program. (All degree programs from the two schools remain intact at SDIS.)

Tripodi’s research includes social media, political partisanship, democratic participation and how artificial intelligence impacts the way people search for information. Rajasekar researches data grids, digital libraries, persistent archives and AI.

Anita Crescenzi, an assistant professor of data science, also had a secondary appointment at SILS. She researches time constraints and time pressure on exploratory information-seeking, information search in support of decision-making and search system design and evaluation for better learning, problem-solving and decision-making.

Carolina Health Informatics Program

Eleven SDIS faculty will continue to participate in the Carolina Health Informatics Program, which is made up of units across the University (SDIS, School of Medicine, Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Adams School of Dentistry, School of Nursing, College of Arts and Sciences and Gillings School of Global Public Health). The interdisciplinary graduate program trains leaders to improve healthcare efficiency and effectiveness.

One example of that is work by Lukasz Mazur to make operating rooms safer through immersive virtual reality training. Mazur, an adjunct SDIS professor and professor at the UNC School of Medicine, has a startup called MaiaZura that curbs burnout, improves teamwork and keeps patients safer through VR scenarios.

Academic and professional overlap

A couple of Tar Heels who studied at SILS ended up teaching data science at Carolina. Triple Tar Heel Kathryn Wymer ’99 (MA), ’05 (PhD), ’23 (MPS) earned a master’s degree in digital curation and management in 2023, joined the data science faculty shortly after and is now an assistant professor. Wymer’s research focuses on digital humanities, AI and data science pedagogy.

Assistant professor Chudi Zhong ’18 earned a bachelor’s degree in information science and now holds joint appointments at SDIS and the UNC College of Arts and Sciences. Her research is on machine learning, optimization and human-model interaction.

Center for Information, Technology and Public Life

The Center for Information, Technology and Public Life brings together expertise across campus, facilitating critical social science research that explores the impacts of emerging technologies, media and information systems on society. Multiple SDIS faculty and students contribute to CITAP research, and Tripodi and Tressie McMillan Cottom, who taught at SILS, are principal investigators at the center supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Sun-ha Hong, an associate professor with dual appointments at SDIS and the UNC College of Arts and Sciences’ communication department, is also a faculty researcher at CITAP. Viviane Ito and Ady Weng, information science doctoral students, also contribute to research at the center.