Latest News
In Memoriam: Professor Twyla Gibson (1954 – 2024)
Friends and Colleagues remember Twyla Gibson as an interdisciplinary scholar whose information interests ranged from Plato to Marshall McLuhan While she came to academia later in life than usual, Twyla Gibson, left a big imprint, including at the Faculty of Information, where she held an assistant professor appointment from 2007 to 2011. Gibson was […]
Congratulations to our Arbor Award winners
The Arbor Awards are the University of Toronto’s highest honour in recognition of exceptional and longstanding volunteer service. Recipients are essential to advancing U of T as one of the world’s great institutions of higher learning and advanced research. They provide volunteer supports that span everything from governance and academic programming to experiential learning and […]
Zooming in with alumni: Manda Vrkljan
Manda Vrkljan graduated from the Faculty of Information in 2019 with concentrations in Library and Information Science and Knowledge Management and Information Management. She is a seasoned librarian and the current President of the Faculty of Information Alumni Association (FIAA). She zoomed in with alumni officer, Regan Tigno. What originally inspired you to pursue your […]
Hot off the presses: Informed magazine, 2025 edition
The Faculty of Information’s alumni magazine, Informed, has just been published. Read tales of student success and ingenuity, get an overview of Faculty of Information research, find out more about generous alumni gifts, and much more. It’s all in the 2025 edition of Informed.
Shaping the Saudi future
After a successful, two decades long career in health informatics and managementconsulting, Dr. Fadi Al-Buhairan (Class of 2007) made the leap into the logisticsindustry in 2019 when he joined Saudi Post as Deputy CEO. Now, having successfullytransformed that organization, he has been named head of Saudi Arabia’s new SpecialIntegrated Logistics Zone. In this conversation, Al-Buhairan […]
MMSt alum Rhéanne Chartrand on her new role as the ROM’s Hatch Curator of Indigenous Art & Culture
When she graduated from the Master of Museum Studies program in 2011, Rhéanne Chartrand was thrilled to be one of the first in her class to land a job in her field. A few months later, however, the organization she was working for folded and she found herself unemployed. It was a “reality check” about […]
Alum Albert Tai’s entrepreneurial journey
Alumnus Albert Tai’s Hypercare startup was featured in the Globe and Mail this week as one of four U of T startups that are solving global challenges with innovative solutions. Tai, who graduated from the Faculty of Information in 2017, launched Hypercare that same year, together with Dr. Joseph Choi, an emergency physician and assistant […]
MMST students, alumna contribute to Governor General’s Award-winning exhibit
Students from the Museum Studies capstone course (2022/23) played a key role in creating an exhibit that has just been named winner of the Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Community Programming. Grace Kovacs, Hanjia Li, Abera Rajendran and Marie Song helped put together “Standing in the Doorway: Lived Histories and Experiences of the Chinese Community”. The exhibit drew on new oral histories, loaned […]
Alumna’s gift will help students get the boost they need
Studying at the Faculty of Information changed the trajectory of Esther Wan’s life. Now, she wants to help today’s students reap the kind of benefits she did There are many ways that attending the Faculty of Information, then known as the Faculty of Library and Information Science or FLIS for short, changed Esther Wan’s life. […]
Alumni Thesis: African American Ancestry Reveals
As Black History Month wraps up, we talk to Faculty of Information alumna Halle Fetwi Imam, who wrote her 2022 Master of Information thesis on the phenomenon of African Americans taking consumer DNA tests to discover their ancestry and then revealing the results in online videos. What first piqued your interest in this topic? I […]
Faculty of Information volunteers honoured at 2023 Arbor Awards
The University of Toronto held a ceremony to honour the 2023 Arbor Award recipients, recognized for their exceptional and longstanding volunteer service. The Faculty of Information is particularly grateful to the following individuals for giving generously of their time, energy and expertise to benefit Information students. Haley Sharpe Design (Kate Aitchison, Carolina Garcia, Orysia Goddard and […]
Success Story: Human-Centred Data Science grad takes on AI governance role
When Lorena Almaraz was working in the non-profit sector, she kept hearing about the need to be data driven, but, at the same time, she saw a major contradiction – almost no one had the staff or resources to actually be data driven. The more Almaraz explored the problem of using data properly and making sense of […]
In Memoriam: Dean and Professor Emerita Ann Schabas (1926 – 2023)
When colleagues, friends and family of the late Ann Schabas reflect on her career and scholarship, the picture that emerges is one of a woman who was quietly ahead of her time. Before she took up library science, Ann Schabas earned two degrees in physics, an unusual choice for a woman at the time. But […]
Death of Professor Emerita Nancy Williamson
Known as a generous and open-spirited colleague as well as an outstanding scholar, Professor Emerita Nancy Williamson passed away in Toronto on December 3rd. While Professor Williamson retired from what was then the Faculty of Library and Information Science almost 30 years ago in 1994, she would regularly visit her office on the sixth floor […]
Sustaining lifelong passions with a legacy gift
An alumna’s generous donation supports research and innovation in cultural heritage Joyce Sowby spent her long life actively engaged with books, art and history so it’s fitting that the unrestricted gift she left to the Faculty of Information will go to support its GLAM Incubator, whose mission is to work with community partners to address […]
Launching the Eric Yu Human-Centred Systems Design Award
To mark the retirement of Professor Eric Yu, a distinguished scholar who’s had a major influence on the field of information systems and human-centred design, the Faculty of Information has established a new award for Master’s and Doctoral students. This award will recognize outstanding work in advancing human interest in the design of technology systems […]
Alumni Profile: Tracking the path of a serial entrepreneur
The latest venture for Mike Borg (Class of 2012) is a company that uses microscopic barcodes made from baker’s yeast to trace products in the food supply chain A self-taught software developer, Mike Borg arrived at the Faculty of Information looking to take advantage of the technical courses in the information systems and design curriculum […]
Faculty launches Lynne C. Howarth Award in honour of esteemed professor and former dean
To mark the retirement of Professor and Dean Emerita Lynne Howarth, the Faculty of Information has established a new award for master’s students researching or doing volunteer work to design and deliver information services to underserved communities. The topic is of special interest to Professor Howarth, whose recent research involved building community in settings where […]