The University of Michigan School of Information welcomes 10 new faculty and 30 lecturers this academic year. Within this cohort, 23 faculty members are graduates of UMSI degree programs.

New Faculty

Matthew Bui, a former UMSI postdoctoral researcher, will be an assistant professor fall 2022. Before coming to U-M, Bui received his PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He was a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology before coming to UMSI. Bui’s research examines the potential and also the barriers to urban data justice in data-driven policy, technologies and platforms. 

Allen Flynn is a UMSI doctoral alumnus and the director of the Master of Health Informatics program. In January 2023, Flynn will join the UMSI faculty as clinical assistant professor. In addition to his PhD in Information, Flynn also has a PharmD from the U-M College of Pharmacy. Before coming back to U-M, Flynn was a practicing pharmacist and manager at U-M hospitals. His research focuses on information around medication use, including the creation of rxology.org, where he discusses issues in medication prescription review. 

Jesse Johnston joined UMSI as a clinical assistant professor in summer 2022. Before coming to U-M, served as senior program officer for preservation and access at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and as senior librarian for digital collections at the Library of Congress. He has also been a consultant to the Council on Library and Information Resources and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. At U-M, Johnston was previously associate director for information strategy at MCubed. Johnston earned his MSI (Master’s in Information Science) at UMSI and also holds a PhD in musicology.  

Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin is joining UMSI as a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in fall 2022. Peterson-Salahuddin earned her PhD degree in media, technology and society from Northwestern University. Her research focuses on how historically racially marginalized communities use communication technologies to create and access information for social and political liberation.  

Michaelanne Thomas is a former Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow who is joining UMSI as an assistant professor in fall 2022. Thomas earned her PhD from the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology, where she was also a Microsoft Research PhD Fellow. She is a sociocultural anthropologist with research interests in how people collaboratively design, access and participate with internet technologies in constrained situations. 

Megan Threats is joining UMSI as an assistant professor in fall 2022. Previously, Threats was an assistant professor at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and a visiting research faculty in the School of Public Health at Yale University. She earned her PhD from the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research program examines how health justice-focused informatics approaches can improve the health and wellbeing of racial/ethnic minoritized LGBTQ communities.

Justine Zhang joins the faculty as an assistant professor in fall 2022. Before coming to UMSI, Zhang was a postdoctoral researcher in computer science at Stanford University, and she earned her PhD from Cornell University. Her research interests include the science of conversations, natural language processing and computational social science.

Alex McLeod, lecturer III, first joined UMSI in fall 2020 as an intermittent lecturer for the Master of Applied Data Science (MADS) program. McLeod earned his PhD in economics from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Before coming to UMSI, he was an economist for the Office of Economic and Demographic Research in Florida. 

Greg Myers, lecturer III, joined the faculty in winter 2022. Myers was previously an intermittent lecturer. He is also a 2021 graduate of UMSI’s MADS program, where he served as an instructional aide and graduate student instructor. Before joining UMSI, Myers was an IT and analytics manager for Heartland Natural Resources in Oklahoma. 

Scott TenBrink, lecturer III, was previously an adjunct lecturer at UMSI. He is the assistant director of Civic Engagement in UMSI's Engaged Learning Office. TenBrink also manages the Citizen Interaction Design program, where he works with students to build partnerships with cities to create information tools that support 21st century citizenship. TenBrink has a master’s degree in urban planning from U-M. 

UMSI also welcomes 30 lecturers to the faculty, including one lecturer I, 12 adjunct lecturers and 17 intermittent lecturers. 

Lecturers

Jeff Dunworth, lecturer I who started winter 2022, is teaching SI 568: Introduction to Applied Data Science.

Nathaniel Borenstein, adjunct who started winter 2022, is teaching SI 512: Change the Internet. 

Derek Bruckner, adjunct starting fall 2022, is teaching SIADS 511: SQL 1 and 611: Advanced Database Architectures and Technologies. Bruckner is a senior application programmer and systems analyst at U-M and an MSI graduate from UMSI.

Aalap Doshi, adjunct starting in fall 2022, is teaching SI 699: MSI Mastery Course. Doshi is the head of user experience at ICPSR at U-M and an MSI graduate from UMSI. 

Krystle Forbes, career advisor and adjunct who started in fall 2021, is teaching SI 390: Internship and 690: Internship/Field Experience and Seminar in Practical Engagement. As part of the Career Development Office, Forbes earned an UMSI Award for Impact in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

Adam Freed, adjunct who started summer 2022, is teaching SI 688: Immersive Applied Projects in the Social Sector. Freed is also the UMSI Global Engagement Program Manager.

Trevor Harkness, adjunct who started summer 2022, is teaching SIADS 673: Intro to Cloud Computing for Data Science.

Junseok Kim, adjunct who starts fall 2022, is teaching SIADS 542: Supervised Learning, 543: Unsupervised Learning and 682: Social Media Analytics. Kim is a UMSI PhD alumnus. He is a research assistant professor for the Institute for Social Research, Survey Research Center.

Sara Lafia, adjunct starting fall 2022, is teaching SIADS 522: Information Visualization I and 622: Information Visualization II. Lafia is a former U-M Institute for Social Research and School of Information postdoctoral researcher. 

Jeremy Nelson, adjunct starting fall 2022, is teaching SI 559: Introduction to AR/VR Application Design. Nelson is the director of the XR Initiative at U-M. 

Sharon Sung, adjunct who started spring 2022, is teaching SIADS 685: Search and Recommender Systems. Sung is an MSI graduate from UMSI.

Rachel Wyatt, adjunct who started spring 2022, is teaching SIADS 532: Data Mining I and 696: Milestone II. Wyatt is a data manager in the U-M School of Public Health and an MSI graduate from UMSI.

Elham Amini, intermittent lecturer who started winter 2022, is teaching SIADS 522: Information Visualization I and 622: Information Visualization II. Amini is an MSI graduate from UMSI.

Kyle Balog, intermittent lecture starting fall 2022, is teaching SIADS 699: Capstone. Balog is a MADS graduate from UMSI.

Cory Bilyeu, intermittent lecturer starting fall 2022, is teaching SIADS 642: Deep Learning I and 652: Network Analysis. Bilyeu is a MADS graduate from UMSI.

Ruth Corddry, intermittent lecturer starting fall 2022, is teaching SIADS 501: Being a Data Scientist and 503: Data Science Ethics. Corddry is a MADS graduate from UMSI. 

Amanda Hardy, intermittent lecturer who started in summer 2022, is teaching SIADS 524: Presenting Uncertainty, 532: Data Mining I and 632: Data Mining II. Hardy is a MADS graduate from UMSI.

Jake Huang, intermittent lecturer who started in summer 2022, is teaching SIADS 516: Big Data: Scalable Data Processing, 522: Information Visualization I, 524: Presenting Uncertainty and 682: Social Media Analytics. Huang is an MHI (Master's of Health Informatics) graduate from UMSI.

Toby Kemp, intermittent lecturer who started summer 2022, is teaching SIADS 511: SQL I, 516: Big Data: Scalable Data Processing, 611: Advanced Database Architectures and Technologies, and 685: Search and Recommender Systems. Kemp is a MADS graduate from UMSI.

Michelle LeBlanc, intermittent lecturer who started winter 2022, and is teaching SIADS 685: Search and Recommender Systems and 699: Capstone. LeBlanc is a MADS graduate from UMSI.

Ryan Maley, intermittent lecturer who started summer 2022, is teaching SIADS 505: Data Manipulation, 522: Information Visualization I, 542: Supervised Learning and 642: Deep Learning I. Maley is a MADS graduate from UMSI.

Kristen Mayer, intermittent lecturer starting fall 2022, is teaching SI 539: Web Design: Responsiveness and Accessibility. Mayer is a MADS graduate from UMSI.

Ben Mullins, intermittent lecturer who started winter 2022, is teaching SI 579: Building Interactive Applications. Mullins is an MSI graduate from UMSI.

Oleg Nikolsky, intermittent lecturer who started summer 2022, is teaching SIADS 516: Big Data: Scalable Data Processing and 593: Milestone 1. Nikolsky is a MADS graduate from UMSI.

Nate Oostendorp, intermittent lecturer who started winter 2022, is teaching SI 699: MSI Mastery Courses. Oostendorp is an MSI graduate from UMSI.

Jennifer Pierre, intermittent lecturer who started winter 2022, is teaching SI 311: Special Topics in Information.

Naga Sanka, intermittent lecturer who started summer 2022, is teaching SIADS 505: Data Manipulation, 515: Efficient Data Processing, 516: Big Data: Scalable Data Processing and 522: Information Visualization I. Sanka is a MADS graduate from UMSI.

Lea Wei, intermittent lecturer starting fall 2022, is teaching SIADS 502: Mathematics Methods I and 602: Qualitative Inquiry for Data Scientists. Wei is an MSI graduate from UMSI.

Jackie Wolf, intermittent lecturer starting fall 2022, is teaching SI 339: Web Design, Development, and Accessibility. Wolf is also a web project manager at Michigan Medicine and is an MSI graduate from UMSI.