Syracuse University’s School of Information Science (iSchool) is excited to welcome five new instructors: Dr. Yiqi Li, Dr. Kelvin King, Dr. EunJeong Cheon, Dr. Sevgi Erdoğan, and Dr. Sebastian Modrow. 

Some of the growing areas of interest at the iSchool, according to Dr. Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Senior Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs, include the future of work, misinformation, and user-centered design. These topics align with the incoming faculty’s research interests and instruction and will allow the iSchool to further grow its expertise in those areas.  

With the hire of Dr. Yiqi Li, the iSchool gains expertise in network social dynamics, especially around social media, and organizational communication. Her focus is on understanding how people and companies communicate and engage with computer-mediated communities. Her research methods further expand the school’s expertise in computational social science. 

Dr. Kelvin King comes to the iSchool as an Assistant Professor with a focus on digital misinformation. Before teaching, Dr. King worked as a data conversion specialist, developer, and data scientist. As a researcher, Dr. King’s interests lie in investigating and developing strategies for combating the propagation of misinformation on social media. He also explores the intersection of behavioral economics and information decision-making in virtual communities.

Dr. EunJeong Cheon joins the iSchool after working as a tenure-track assistant professor in the Computer Science department at Aalborg University in Denmark. Her research primarily explores human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative work and design. Currently, Dr. Cheon is working on projects within the future of work with collaborative robots, human-robot interaction, and redesigning a sustainable food labeling system. 

In the Spring of 2022, Dr. Sevgi Erdoğan will join the iSchool. Before Syracuse, she was an Associate Research Professor and the Director of the Transportation Policy Research Group at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education. Dr. Erdoğan’s research explores the complex interrelations among human infrastructure, socioeconomic activity, and the environment. Specializations of her work include modeling and optimization, travel demand management, and emerging transportation technologies and smart cities. 

These four hires were part of the Invest Syracuse Initiative to hire an additional 100 new faculty across the university over five years. The goal of the hiring initiative is to help the university build more robust interdisciplinary scholarships where faculty are collaborating across colleges and disciplines to better tackle societal issues. Dr. Li and Dr. Cheon are part of a cluster of faculty focused on artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and the human frontier. Dr. King is part of a cluster focused on citizenship and democratic institutions. Dr. Erdoğan joins a cluster across campus focused on energy and the environment.

Dr. Sebastian Modrow contributes to the Library and Information Science program, giving students opportunities to learn about cultural heritage preservation and special collections and archives, along with the history of books, libraries, and archives. Dr. Modrow’s scholarship explores the intersection of history, heritage, and memory studies within the realms of libraries and archives. Further topics include literacy, information access, and power in pre-modern societies, identity narratives, and the othering of whole populations during acts of colonization.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity when you have five new faculty joining the school who bring technical expertise with advanced computational network analysis and quantitative analysis so we can teach our students cutting-edge techniques,” says Dr. Stromer-Galley. “Their presence on campus also fuels important research questions to help understand some of the most challenging issues we face in society today.”