The University of Michigan School of Information welcomes 24 new faculty members this academic year. 

Eight new full-time faculty have joined:

Kishonna Gray is joining UMSI as a professor. Before joining UMSI, Gray was a professor in Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies, African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. She is also a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University. Nationally and internationally, Gray is known as a leading scholar in gaming and digital media studies. Her research looks at the ways digital platforms and technological practices are racialized and gendered, with a particular focus on how minoritized users influence the creation of technological products and the dissemination of digital artifacts. Her research contributes to digital studies, game studies, Black studies, communication, platform studies, media studies, digital feminism and Black game studies.

At UMSI, Gray will be developing classes on community engaged research, gaming and other topics surrounding technology and racial justice. 

Jiayu Zhou is joining UMSI as an associate professor. Previously, he was a professor at Michigan State University. Zhou is renowned for his work in creating machine learning and generative artificial intelligence solutions for healthcare problems, particularly for the early diagnosis and interventions of Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment. His latest research looks at the patterns in language and behavior for early detection of dementia and uses generative AI for therapeutic intervention and drug discovery. Zhou holds the role of associate editor for three journals: ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare, ACM SIGKDD Explorations and Neurocomputing. 

At UMSI, Zhou will be teaching SI 630 (Natural Language Model), SI 480 (Capstone - Data Science Track) and developing a new machine learning course at the undergraduate level.

Rebecca Frank is joining UMSI as an assistant professor. She received her PhD in Information from the University of Michigan before joining the Berlin School of Library and Information Science at Humboldt University as the Einstein Center Digital Future Juniorprofessor for Information Management. She then joined the University of Tennessee School of Information Sciences as an assistant professor. Frank’s research examines the social construction of risk in digital curation and preservation. She also conducts research in the areas of open data, digital preservation, digital curation and data reuse, focusing on social and ethical barriers that limit or prevent the preservation, sharing, and reuse of digital information. Her most current work investigates data practices among members of the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation community.

At UMSI, Frank will be co-teaching SI 305 (Introduction to Information Analysis) and will be teaching SI 699 (Digital Curation Mastery Course). 

Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin is moving into a new role at UMSI as an assistant professor. She first came to SI two years ago as a President's Postdoctoral Fellow and research assistant professor. Peterson-Salahuddin’s research focuses on the culturally specific ways marginalized communities, most often Black women, femmes and queer people engage with mass and digital communications technologies to seek information, produce knowledge and build community. 

At UMSI, Peterson-Salahuddin will be teaching  SI 429 (Online Communities) and will be teaching a section of SI 500 (Problem Solving with Information). 

Venkatesh Potluri is joining UMSI as an assistant professor. Potluri obtained a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington. Venkatesh's work investigates accessibility barriers experienced by people who are blind or visually impaired through a variety of approaches, including qualitative research, data-driven analysis and ethnographic studies. He contributes datasets and improvements to real-world systems to enhance accessibility. In his recent large-scale analysis of computational notebooks—tools widely used in disciplines such as data science, artificial intelligence and astronomy—Venkatesh uncovered accessibility barriers arising from existing infrastructures and authoring practices. In his new role, he is excited to examine the impact of rapidly adopted technologies, such as generative AI, on people with disabilities, and is committed to contributing real-world solutions that improve accessibility throughout both the development lifecycle and use of these technologies. 

At UMSI, Potluri will be teaching SI552 (Introduction to Accessibility). 

Karthik Srinivasan is joining UMSI as an assistant professor. Prior to his appointment at Michigan, Srinivasan completed his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences from Northwestern University. Srinivasan's research applies principles of behavioral economics to study digital and social media. At UMSI, Srinivasan will teach a course on the applications of large language models.

Jinseok Kim is moving into a new role at UMSI as a full-time Lecturer III. He has served as a Research Assistant Professor at the Institute for Social Research since 2017 and has been teaching at UMSI since 2022. He holds a PhD from the School of Information Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

At UMSI, Kim will be teaching SI 405 (IA Capstone I), SI 485 (IA Capstone II), SIADS 532 (Data Mining), SIADS 542 (Supervised Learning), SIADS 543 (Unsupervised Learning), SIADS 696 (Milestone II) and SIADS 699 (MADS Mastery Courses).

Tonya McCarley is moving into a new role at UMSI as a full-time lecturer III. Since 2015, McCarley has been teaching principles of interaction design and accessibility to first and second-year graduate students at UMSI. 

With her new role at UMSI, McCarley will be teaching  SI 582 (Introduction to Interaction Design), SI 699 (MSI Mastery Course: UX Capstone), SI 552 (Introduction to Accessibility) and SI 310 (Information Environments and Work).

UMSI is also excited to welcome 16 new lecturers. They are: 

Rhea Acharya, lecturer I

Andrea Barbarin, intermittent lecturer

Margaret Brodbeck, adjunct lecturer

Rebecca Chung, intermittent lecturer

Emily Cutlip, adjunct lecturer

Elaine Czarnik, adjunct lecturer

Brenna Davidson, adjunct lecturer

Manali Desai, lecturer I

Adam Freed, adjunct lecturer

Lindsey Forche, intermittent lecturer

Paul Green, adjunct lecturer

Dan Ouellette, intermittent lecturer

Jennifer Poulton, intermittent lecturer

Alissa Talley-Pixley, adjunct lecturer

Vikram Venugopal, lecturer I

Angie Zill, adjunct lecturer 

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