SCHOOL OF INFORMATION SCIENCES 2003 STUDENT AWARDS

Beta Phi Mu-Pi Chapter sponsors a research paper competition for students in the Information Science, Library Science, and Telecommunications programs. An award of $500.00 is made to the student who submits a portfolio judged to be the best scholarly work. This year the panel of judges selected Elizabeth Hallum as recipient of the Award. Ms. Hallum received her Bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University in 1999 and will receive her Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh in August 2003.

MARGARET MARY “PEG” CORBETT AWARD

The Margaret Mary Corbett Award was established in honor of the late Margaret Mary “Peg” Corbett, secretary to the Chair of the Department of Library and Information Science. The award honors the best dissertation proposal approved in the doctoral studies program of the Department of Library and Information Science over the preceding year.

The 2003 recipient of the Award is Ling-Ling Lillian Lai. The title of Ms. Lai’s winning dissertation proposal is “Knowledge Organization by IT Consultants – Exploring and Discovering the Organizational Aspect of Knowledge Management.” Ling-Ling received her BA from Tamkang University in the Republic of China in 1994 and her MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh in 1998 and is currently seeking her PhD in Library Science at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Information Sciences.

INFORMATION ENGINEERING COMPETITION

The Information Engineering Competition, initiated in 1992 by Dr. Michael Spring, recognizes outstanding achievement in the design and execution of a software system that incorporates efficient computation, effective human-computer interfaces, and high-level information manipulation. This year's award is being presented to co-winners, Adam Zagorecki and Marut Buranarach. Adam’s submission, “Collaborative Client-Server Software for Simultaneous Editing Small Chunks of Text by Multiple Users” is a unique contribution to the field of collaborative authoring in attempting to establish ad hoc document locks at the character level within a fragment of text. Marut’s submission, “The system for Organizing Course Resource Collection using Association, Classification and Deduction” demonstrates new ways of organizing and finding information on hypertext webs such as the world wide web. In addition to them each receiving a $500.00 award, Mr. Zagorecki’s and Mr. Buranarach’s names will be added to the plaque that is displayed in the School.

HAROLD LANCOUR AWARD

The faculty has selected Essam Mansour for the 2003 Harold Lancour Award for Excellence in International and Comparative Study in Library and Information Science. The recipient was chosen for his study of Internet use by students in Egypt and compared their use with use in other countries where this has been studied. He found that students’ experience is a factor, but even more so are socio-economic factors and cultural differences. Our understanding of provision of information services in other countries, especially Egypt, was enhanced by his work. Essam received his BA from Cairo University in 1992, his MLIS degree from the University of Wisconsin in 2000 and his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Sciences in December 2002.

The Lancour award is named in honor of the late founding dean of SIS. This $200 award is made possible by gifts from many friends and former students of Dean Lancour. The Award reflects the desire of the School and the University to recognize academic excellence in the international librarianship field in which Dr. Lancour was pre-eminent.

CATHERINE OFIESH ORNER AWARD

The judges selected Peerapon Siripongwutikorn and Stephen Hughes as this year’s co-recipient’s for the 2003 Catherine Ofiesh Orner Award. Peerapon’s paper was titled “Adaptive Bandwidth Control for Efficient Aggregate Qos Provisioning” and Stephen’s paper was titled “Supported Viewpoint Control in Virtual Environments.” Peerapon is a current PhD/Tele student who received his BEng from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology in Thailand in 1995 and his MST degree from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Sciences in 1998. Stephen received his BS and MS degrees in Computer Science from Dickinson College and Indiana University, respectively, and is a current PhD student in the Information Science department at our school.

The Orner Award, and its monetary award of $500, established in honor of Catherine Ofiesh Orner, a deceased distinguished alumna of SIS, is given annually for the best scholarly paper in information science suitable for publication.

ROBERT R. KORFHAGE AWARD

Established in 1998, the Robert R. Korfhage Award honors the late Dr. Korfhage, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Information Science and Telecommunications. The Award encourages collaborative research between faculty and students through a paper addressing important areas of information science, including information retrieval, user interfaces and formal methods.

This year, the recipient of the $500 Robert R. Korfhage Award is Adam Zagorecki. His paper, “How Common are Noisy-MAX Distributions in Practice,” was co-authored with Dr. Marek Druzdzel. Adam is a current PhD/IS student and received his magister inzynier from the Institute of Computer Science Bialystok University of Technology in Poland.

JENNIFER & ERIC SPIEGEL BOOK ENDOWMENT FUND AWARD

Established in 1999, the Jennifer and Eric Spiegel Book Endowment Fund Award, funded in its entirety through the generosity of the Spiegels, recent SIS Alumni, is given to the student who submits the best paper written on a given topic. This year’s recipient for the Spiegel Award is Jesse Hicks for his winning essay submission, “Questioning the Effect of Instant Messaging on Adolescent Verbal and Social Development.” Jesse is an April 2003 graduate.

This award is a joint award shared between the School of Information Sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences. During the next term that this Award will be presented it will be given to a deserving candidate from the College of Arts and Sciences.

SIS ALUMNI SOCIETY AWARDS

The SIS Alumni Society has created four $200 awards to recognize student leaders. Students were nominated by faculty from all three programs on the basis of academic accomplishment, leadership, and efforts to improve the academic programs or community life for students.

• Jay Daily Award
  
  This award, which was established by the late Jay Daily, Professor Emeritus in DLIS, is presented to a student for outstanding contributions to the graduate program in library and information science. The recipient for the Jay Daily Award is Jackie Krake.
  
  Jackie worked on Electronic Publishing in the VISC Lab for the past year and her work is excellent. She created many publications and quality brochures for the VISC Lab in addition to producing material’s for the Open House. She received her BS degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2001 and is currently enrolled in the MLIS program at the School of Information Sciences where she will graduate from in August.
  
  
• Anthony Debons Award
  
  This award is presented to a student for outstanding contributions to the Bachelor of Science in Information Science program. The recipient for the Anthony Debons Award is Michael DiVito. Mike has been a prime force behind the regeneration of Prism as President of the student organization. He helped establish an IS Day program and brought in companies to give presentations, has represented the School at numerous events and also participated with VISC in a number of projects. He is a current BSIS student.
  
  
• Fritz Froehlich Award
  
  This award is presented to a student for outstanding contributions to the graduate program in telecommunications. The recipient of the Fritz Froehlich Award is Chutima Prommak. Chutima is a doctoral student in the Telecommunications program, having received her BEng from Khon Kaen University in Thailand in 1992 and her MS in Telecommunications degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1998. Faculty selected Chutima because she has been instrumental in the development of the lab experiments for the Photonics lab and supervises its operation. Additionally, she assists the Director of the Telecom program in recruiting and maintaining contact with applicants to the Telecom program. And lastly for her involvement in the design of a wireless local area network and IT plan for St. Stephens K-8 school.
  
  
• Allen Kent Award
  
  This award is presented to a student for outstanding contributions to the graduate program in information science. The co-recipient’s for this year’s award are Shana Michaels and Matt Kazanjian. Shana has been a key graduate student researcher at VISC and has also contributed her time and expertise to projects at the Women’s Shelter and a number of other charitable organizations in Pittsburgh. Matt has been one of the top graduate student researchers in VISC and has also worked on many community projects in the Pittsburgh region. Both are current MSIS students. Shana received her BA from Kalamazoo College in 1990 and Matthew received his BSIS degree from the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh in 2002.

SCHOOL LIBRARY CERTIFICATION PRGRAM STUDENT AWARD

The SLCP Student Award is made to the outstanding student who exemplifies professional promise based on academic achievement and faculty nomination graduating in a three term period. This year’s recipient selected by the panel of judges is Mary Grace Kelly. She was chosen by the faculty committee for her quality essay and interview and received a $2500.00 award. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 1982 and her Master of Library and Information Sciences degree in April 2003. The three runners up were Erika Frank, Kipp Dawson and Leslie Poston who each received a $1000.00 award.