Spring 2020 commencement celebrations were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS) recognized our winter 2019 and spring 2020 grads online and on social media in May 2020, later that year in the fall SILS newsletter, and in the spring of 2021 at the first SILS Virtual Commencement.
Scroll through this page to find links for graduate spotlights, a virtual commencement address, traditional commencement honors, and more.
Class of 2020 graduates who want the chance to celebrate on campus should make plans to attend special events planned by the University for October 2021.
Bachelor of Science in Information Science (BSIS)
Khalaf Nesreen Bassam Abu
Ehinome Jason Akhimien (2019)
Matthew Hyatt Allison
Hasan Asadi
Kyle Robert Ashburn
Ashley Marie Baich
Jeremy Thomas Beeker
Sarah Tucker Bost
Rishi Nilesh Champaneria
Chia-Ling Chen
Rosiyah Cordaro
Carson Cy Cutright
Stephen Lawrence Deluca
Haley Anna Dezwaan
Justin Lee Do
AlexanderR. Donovan
Michael Joseph Doucette Jr.
Kayla Rose Dowdy
Solomon Edward Duncan
Torin Edwards
Allegra Ramazani Fiets
Kyle Nathaniel Gabbard
Jeet Galani
Kayla Gardner
Alexis Ryan Gaviola
Ian Cooper Goodson
Gauri Nitin Goswamy
Laura Elizabeth Haller
Jade Kiana Hampton
William Berkeley Hayes
Rachael Lauren Head
Riley Thomas Head
Lydia Jeanette Heater
Shane Prashad Heeralall
Marwa Jaafar
Michael Jabar
Rahul Jain
Matthew John Kind
Joshua Eric Krause
SunJin Lee
Gregory Majeski (2019)
Lucas Maynard
Andrew O'Neil McClenney
Michael McGinniss (2019)
David Nguyen
Nhi Nguyen
Jwalanta Panthee
Isa Shamir Paschall
Chase Andrew Pasciuto
Alfredo Miguel Quiros
Jacob William Ryan
Torrey Hana Salas
Mirabel Thea Salmon
Elizabeth A. Soucaze
Melissa Williams Stewart (2019)
Sarah Jane Stonehouse
Zoe Sandra Strafford-Price
Bryant Alexander Thai
Bryan Edward Truong
Azeem Ahmad Uraizee
Adrianna Vu (2019)
Aylish Wastchak
Karley Wheeler
Hugh White
Vivian Wiktorek
Christopher Graves Williams
Mackenzie Locklear Williams
Jingyuan Zhou
Master of Science in Information Science (MSIS)
Erin Allison Black
Dorothy Lee Blyth (2019)
Neil Patrick Byers
Yuru Cao
Bennett E. Chapman (2019)
Jonathan Clancy (2019)
Emily Claire Crockett
Rucha Hareshkumar Dalwadi
Leah Epting (2019)
Julie Elizabeth Fieldsteel (2019)
Elizabeth McWhorter Ford (2019)
Luzita Francis
Kayla Nikkole Angelique Michelle Gibson
Caroline Goray
Anna Catherine Groves (2019)
Samantha Helen Haughton
Jiesong He
CharlesMichael Higgins
Andrew Daniel Jacober (2019)
Hyun Seo Albert Kang
Whitney-Jocelyn Badou Aude Ursule Kouaho
Meng Li
Yanan Li (2019)
Zihao Li
Ziyue Liang
Zhangsinong Liu (2019)
Kathleen Diane Lowry
Samantha Rae Gaufo Mandani
Zhaohui Man
Mariesha Rosalita McAdoo
Hely Rajendra Mehta
Chenlu Meng (2019)
Lingqi Meng (2019)
My Anh Nguyen
Nkechinyere Nwoko
Nadia Pacheco-Amaro
Suchi Kamal Parekh
Carson Nicole Pence (2019)
Guanru Peng
Deborah Gray Reed
Nicole Robertson (2019)
Diane Judith Rodden
Todd Smith Jr.
Karina L. Soni
Feyza Aisenur Teke
MarlerSlate Tuttle III
Peilin Wang
Qishun Wang
Yuan Wen
Venkatapraveen Wunnava
Lu Xu (2019)
Ruiting Yang
Wei Zhang
Bo Zhou
Jingyi Zhou
Master of Science in Library Science (MSLS)
Anicka Austin
Taylor Barrett
Christopher S. Bishop (2019)
Alexander J. Chisum
Peter Owen Conlon
Stephanie L. Crowell
Brooke Csuka
Nicole Cvjetnicanin
Shannon Marie Delaney
Sharon Marie Demorest
Alexandra Deyneka
Rachel Elizabeth Duffus
Leon Sebring Dure V
Melissa Ashley Ferens (2019)
Jayna Corinne Fishman
Catherine Gallagher
Courtney George
Cary Gentry
Emily Elizabeth Gering (2019)
Graceon Brooke Gordon
Gerald Henry Groon III
Sarah Catherine Guy
Katharine Herman
Christopher Edward Hill
Olin Johnson
Jennifer Lorraine Kirby (2019)
Meredith Lindsey Kite
Hannah Sophia Link
McKenzie Louise Long
Mariel Ann MacGowan (2019)
Gillian Mary Mahoney (2019)
Abigail Mann
Brittany N. McCarver
Joseph Allen McGraw
Margaret Christine McGuire
Evan Jared Miles
Lydia Jean Neuroth
Katherine Orth (2019)
Austin Riopel
Holly Nicole Roper
Michelle Suzanne Runyon
Erin Melissa Rutherford (2019)
Deane Antonio Rynerson (2019)
Sabine Hua-Wei Schmalbeck
Silvia Louise Sheffield
Anna Lee Spencer
Kristen Helen Stockdale
Marissa Rachel Straw
Tierra Marie Thomas
Katherine Elizabeth Trathen
Caroline Lynn Waller
Julia Marie Wiker
Lauren Elyse Wise
Jordan Wrigley
Wuyan Yao
Caitlin Marie Zimmerman
Master’s Papers
Access electronic copies of these and other SILS master's papers through the Carolina Digital Repository.
Spring 2020
Graduate Name – Master’s Paper Title (Advisor Last Name).
Eden Andes – Are You Picking Up What I am Putting Down? How Buyers and Sellers on Resale and Secondhand Clothing Mobile Shopping Applications (mis)Communicate (Haefele).
Lynnee Marie Argabright – Open Access in Emerging Scholars’ Journal Choice: A Bibliometric Analysis (Bruckner).
Anicka Austin – Participatory Engagement: Embodied Information Behaviors in Performing Arts Programming (Winget).
Claire Eleanor Cahoon – Lowering the Barrier of Entry: Developing an Online Self-Guided Learning Module for an Information Technology Competency Test (Rawson).
Yuqiao Cao – Collecting the Art of Vocabulary: Investigating the Use of Attributes in Museums’ Collection Management Systems (Lee)
Yuru Cao – Testbot: A Chatbot-Based Interactive Interview Preparation Application (Rajasekar).
Clare Therese Carlson – One Size Does Not Fit All: Exploring Email Archiving Workflows (Lee)
Julia Elizabeth Cavalier – Understanding the Users of the North Carolina Water and Wastewater Rate Dashboard (Bergquist)
Cai Chen – The Impact of 2018 Tariffs on International Trade (Rajasekar)
Alexander J. Chisum – A Content Analysis of Academic Library Gift Policy Statements in the United States (Flaherty).
Peter Owen Conlon – The Health Information Seeking Behavior of IFC Fraternity Men at Two Universities (Flaherty).
Isabel Erin Crevasse – Once Upon a Scheme: Conceptualizing Digital Fairy Tale and Folklore Classification Systems for Extra-Academic Professionals (Sturm).
Emily Claire Crockett – “DAM Becky, Look at the Asset” Digital Asset Management in Cultural Heritage Institutions (Bauer).
Stephanie L. Crowell – Exploring Outreach in Community Archives (Tibbo).
Brooke Csuka – Effects of Historical Contextualization of Confederate Monuments in North Carolina (Rawson).
Nicole Cvjetnicanin – Within and Without: A Content Analysis of First-Generation American Narratives in Young Adult Literature (Rawson).
Rucha Hareshkuma Dalwadi – Analyzing Sessions Laws of the State of North Carolina: An Automated Approach Using Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (Rajasekar).
Shannon Marie Delaney – Buy, Borrow, or Steal: Patterns in Searching for Scholarly Literature (Hemminger).
Rachel Elizabeth Duffus – Outcomes-Based Evaluations in School Libraries: Developing an OBE Tool for Elementary School Libraries (Rawson)
Leon Sebring Dure V – Interconnectedness: A Case Study of Revolutionary War and War of the Regulation Battlefields in North and South Carolina (Winget)
Macy S. Ferguson – “But Why Can I Only Check Out Five Items?”: Policy Making for Public Patrons in Academic Libraries (Bergquist).
Christina Elizabeth Getaz – “I Mean, I Think It Still Works?”: How Do Library Staff Develop Expertise and Support Users in Circulating Audiovisual Production Equipment (Sturm).
Kayla Nikkole Angelique Michelle Gibson – Investigation Check: Studying the Information-Seeking Behaviors of Dungeons & Dragons Players (Thomson).
Caroline Goray – What Makes a Notification Important? A Survey on Personalized Mobile Notification Systems (Rawson).
Gerald Henry Groon III – Torches, Thieves, and Tinder: Recurring Themes in Mythical Origins of Fire (Sturm).
Sarah Catherine Guy – Streaming Media Collection in A Changing Environment: A Content Analysis of Academic Library Collection Development Policies (Vargha).
Gabrielle Elyse Hale – Fantastic Beasts and How to Find Them: An Examination of How Historians Search for Animals in the Archives (Lee).
Samantha Helen Haughton – Efficiently Exchanging Environmental Data (Capra).
Jiesong He – Understanding And Evaluating A Text Classification Model Using Interpretable Machine Learning Methods (Wang).
Alexandra G. Helms – Dispatches from the 200's: A Case Study in Religious Representation in the Wake County Public Library System (Hughes-Hassell).
Charles Michael Higgins – Comparing Usability of Text-Based and Image-Based CAPTCHAs (Shaw).
Christopher Edward Hill Extinction or Evolution? Examining the Changing Face of Research and Reference Librarianship in the Digital Age (Winget).
Rui Hou – Development of a Web Application of Social Networking for College Students (Shaw).
Kathryn Julia Kehoe – Evaluating Health Information on Infertility Forums: Can Online Peer Health Forums Provide Accurate Health Information (Flaherty).
Paul Michael Khawaja – A Software Tool-Based Accessibility Assessment of Public Library Websites in the United States (Capra).
Meredith Lindsey Kite – Telling Stories, Building Alliances: Advocacy for Audiovisual Archive Preservation (Tibbo).
Meng Li – Machine Translation Application with Recurrent Neural Network (Rajasekar).
Zihao Li – Trinity Relationship Among Web Servers, Database Servers and Humans in Different Roles and Settings (Jones).
Ziyue Liang – An Exploration of Collaborative Information Seeking Processes in Graduate Student Group Projects (Capra).
Hannah Sophia Link – How Well Do North Carolina Public Library Websites Facilitate Access for Spanish-Speaking Users? (Bergquist).
Zhangsinnog Liu – Evaluating the Teams that Comprise Billion-Dollar Companies (Jones).
McKenzie Louise Long – The Delicate Art of Portraying Your Archivist: A Textual Analysis of Mass Media Portrayals of Archives, Archivists, and Archival Materials in the Twenty First Century (Anthony).
Kathleen Diane Lowry – Organizing System for AYA Resource and Service: Descriptive Schema for Categorizing Resources for the AYA Cancer Population (Capra).
Phillip Thomas MacDonald – “Pop-Up” Archive: How to Get the Public into Archives, by Taking the Archive to the Public (Melo).
Samantha Rae Gaufo Mandani – Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself: Evaluating for Inclusive and Equitable Themes in Online Resources for Information Technology Competency Tests (Rawson).
Mariesha Rosalita McAdoo – Re-envisioning Data for Impact: A Case Study of a Durham Nonprofit Organization (Gibson).
Brittany N. McCarver – A Historical Case Study of the Pullman Palace Car Company Library (Shaw).
Joseph Allen McGraw – Faculty Use of Interlibrary Loan Services and Their Confidence That Their Information Needs Can Be Met (Gilliland).
Margaret Christine McGuire – From Concept to Practice: Themes of Diversity Within the Strategic Planning of Academic Libraries (Hughes-Hassell).
Megan McMahon – A Makerspace of One’s Own? An Exploratory Study of Women and Gender Non-Conforming Individuals Experience of an Academic Makerspace (Melo).
Hely Rajendra Mehta – Validating Medical Queries with Literature from PubMed Using Topic Modelling (Gotz).
Chenlu Meng – Detecting Depression on Reddit with Textual Data (Haas).
Evan Jared Miles – Impact of Shared Discovery on Consortium Borrowing: Analyzing TRLN Discovery and TRLN Direct (Hemminger).
Lyida Jean Neuroth – Using Records about Slavery Tutorial: A Project of the Wilson Special Collections Library (Rawson).
Suchi Kamal Parekh – Quantitative Analysis to Compare Smart Cities (Rajasekar).
James Wyatt Patterson – Automating the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS): An Initial Investigation Based on Error Reports in Radiation Oncology (Mazur/ Wang).
Guanru Peng – Aspect Based Rating Prediction for Yelp Customer Review (Haas).
Teresa T. Phan – Barriers to Access or Simple Disinterest? A Study of Use of QR Codes Among College Students (Capra).
Holly Nicole Roper – Representing the Romance: Diversity and Inclusion in the Romance Collections of Public Libraries (Hughes-Hassell).
Michelle Suzanne Runyon – Bills, Bills, Bills: An Investigation of How Libraries and Archives Seek Disaster Recovery Funding (Flaherty).
Sabine Hua-Wei Schmalbeck – Making Policies: An Analysis of Makerspace Policies at Academic Institutions (Melo).
Todd Smith, Jr. – Hello, Are You Listening To Me? An Analysis of the UNC University Libraries’ Chat Reference System (Haefele).
Karina L. Soni – Walking on Eggshells: Experiences of Students of Color within Library and Information Science Master’s Programs (Gibson).
Anna Lee Spencer – A Study of African American Research Guides Created by State Archives (Anthony).
Marissa Rachel Straw – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Related (LGBTQ+) Young Adult Fiction Anti-Bias Selection Tool and Core Collection (Sturm).
Anusha Suresh – Topic Modeling for Email Subject Line Analysis (Lee).
Tierra Marie Thomas – A Case Study of Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library Conscious Editing Steering Committee (Winget).
Allison Thompson – Coq au Catalog: An Analysis of the Description of Additions and Annotations in Manuscript Recipe Collections (Winget).
Katherine Elizabeth Trathen – Archives in Context: A Content Analysis of how Archives’ Websites Explain Finding Aids (Shaw).
Marler Slate Tuttle – Declarative Retrieval: Assessing User Trust in AI-Created Visual (Re)presentation of Web Search Content (Capra).
Caroline Lynn Waller – Capitalizing on Collections and the Crowd: What Needs to be Considered Before Embarking on a Digital Crowdsourcing Project (Tibbo)
Manhua Wang – Does Artificial Intelligence Really Benefit Reviewers with Reduced Workload? A Mixed-Methods Usability Study on Systematic Review Software (Yu).
Peilin Wang – A Study of Review Helpfulness Prediction Using Text from Different Domains (Arguello).
Yuan Wen – Factors Influencing Drivers’ Trust in Navigation Systems (Hemminger).
Julia Wiker – From Indisputable Reality to Conscious Contention: Moving Beyond Modernist Conceptions of Evidence to a New Post-Postmodern Conception of Archival Evidence (Lee).
Jordan Wrigley – Millennium Development Goal 5 Maternal Health Publications: An Open Bibliometric Mapping and Analysis (Gollop).
Venkatapraveen Wunnava – Exploration of Wikipedia Traffic Data to Analyze the Relationship Between Multiple Pages (Arguello).
Yuxuan Xu – Twitter Stance Detection with Textual, Sentiment, and Target-specific Model (Arguello).
Ruiting Yang – Predicting the Popularity of TED Talks (Wang)
Yukun Yang – Friends or Foes: Understanding Communication and Interaction Patterns of Homogeneous and Cross-Cutting Spaces in Online Activism (Arguello).
Wuyan Yao – Digital Humanities Pedagogy in Academic Libraries in the Research Triangle (Shaw).
Yuxiao Yao – Development of an Administration System for a Social Networking Website (Shaw).
Wei Zhang – Sentiment Analysis and Web Development of Movie Reviews Using Naive Bayes and LSTM (Rajasekar).
Bo Zhou – The Design and Development of a New Interactive Publication Management System for Renaissance Computing Institute: Project Report (Shaw).
Jingyi Zhou – An Analysis of the Allergy Comments on Twitter Using Data Mining Approach A (Arguello).
Caitlin Marie Zimmerman – Give Queer Kids Books (Hughes-Hassell).
August 2020
Catherine M. Gallagher – Yet Another (Mis) Representation of Disability: A Critical Content Analysis of Blindness/Vision Impairment in Young Adult Literature (Rawson).
Cary Gentry – Shifting the Narrative: A Content Analysis of First-Generation Student Portrayal in Library and Information Science Literature (Bergquist).
Graceon B. Gordon – How Public Libraries Perceive Makerspaces Impacting Youth Development (Sturm).
Whitney-Jocelyn Badou Kouaho – Black Activist Mobilization and Police Surveillance in the Triangle (Shaw).
Abigail Mann – Through Rain, Through Snow, Through Quarantine: An Environmental Scan of Academic Library Messaging During COVID-19 (Rawson).
Julia Wiker – From Indisputable Reality to Conscious Contention: Moving Beyond Modernist Conceptions of Evidence to a New Post-Postmodern Conception of Archival Evidence (Lee).
December 2020
Neil Patrick Byers – Applying Supervised Clustering to Archival Appraisal of Email (Lee)
Sharon Marie Demorest – An Exploration of the Search Behaviors of Children When Using an Online Library Catalog (Rawson).
Alexandra Deyneka – Tracing Artists’ Research Practices (Sturm).
Teke Feyza – Virtual Reality as a Diagnostic Tool: A Systematic Review of Studies Using Virtual Reality Technology for the Assessment of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia (Yu).
Jayna Corinne Fishman – Libraries, Weeds, and Other Things That Grow: Libraries as Ecologies and the Philosophy of Librarianship (Hughes-Hassell).
Katharine Herman – What is Open if not Open Access? Tracing a Genealogy of “Open” in Anthropology (Solomon).
Olin Harper Johnson – Comparison of Ku Klux Klan Collections at Four American Universities (Rawson).
Hyunseo A. Kang – Correlating Cryptocurrency Price with Twitter Sentiment (Wang).
My Anh Nguyen – University Student Health Websites: Navigating Information During COVID-19 and the Start of a New Semester (Gibson).
Nadia Pacheco Amaro – Examining Durham’s Latino/Latine Population and its Relationship to Durham One Call (Gibson).
Deborah Gray Reed – A Content Analysis of Natural Disaster Discourse on Twitter (Wang).
Austin Riopel – Keeping an Ear to the Ground: Investigating the Practices, Attitudes, and Interests of Triangle-area Music Venue Operators Regarding Preservation of Local Music Culture (Winget).
Silvia Sheffield – Language of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in Academic Library Job Advertisements (Rawson).
Kristen Helen Stockdale – Defining Modern Outreach in North Carolina Public Libraries (Hughes-Hassell).
Lauren Elyse Wise – Outcome-based Evaluation of Preschool Storytimes: Understanding Youth Public Librarian Perception (Sturm).
Doctor of Philosophy in Information and Library Sciences (PhD)
Heather Lynn Barnes
“Conceptualizing and Curating Digital Documentaries.”
Advisor: Helen Tibbo
Anita Marie Caywood Crescenzi
“Adaptation in Information Search and Decision-Making Under Time Pressure.”
Advisor: Rob Capra
Elliott Ayers Hauser
“Making Certain: Information and Social Reality.”
Advisor: Ryan Shaw
Colin Christopher Post
“Networked Alternatives: Digital Curation and Artistic Production on Artist-Run Platforms.”
Advisor: Cal Lee
Emily Elizabeth Roscoe
“Potential Risks of Legal Liability for Collecting Institutions: An Empirical Study of Legal Claims and a Comparison with Legal Issues Included in LIS Graduate Curricula.”
Advisor: Cal Lee
Megan Vaness Threats
“Information Behaviors and Engagement Along the HIV Prevention and Care Continua.”
Advisor: Amelia Gibson
Yinglong Zhang
“Beyond Searching: Understanding How People Use Search To Support Their Creative Endeavors.”
Advisor: Rob Capra
Carolina Health Informatics Program (CHIP)
PhD in Health Informatics 2020 Graduates
Terika Lakeisha McCall
Emily R. Pfaff
Rachel Amy Stemerman
Master of Professional Science in Biomedical and Health Informatics 2020 Graduates
Muhammad Osama Ali
Aaron Bohlmann
Tia Janaye Carmon
Susmitha Chilukuri
Eric Roger Cui
Rekha Darshan Divakaran
Allison Roya Gartland
Dale H. Henion
Timothy Ryan Hensley
Farrah Hermes
Roshan John
Halina Malgorzata Krzystek
Adnan Mustansir Lakdawala
Nicole Alexandra Mathews
Eman Mahmoud Mohamed Metwally
Lindsay S. Soo
Jeffrey Stocker
Trusha Taneja
Erin K. Wallace
David Zablocki
Liyuan Zhu
Awards and Achievements
Dean’s Achievement Award
Meg McMahon - “A Makerspace of One’s Own? An Exploratory Study of Women and Gender Non-Conforming Individuals’ Experiences of an Academic Makerspace.” Advised by Maggie Melo
Jon Clancy - “Breakdowns in Human-AI Partnership: Revelatory Cases of Automation Bias in Autonomous Vehicle Accidents.” Advised by Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi
Elfreda Chatman Student Research Award
Lynnee Argabright
Lauren Wise
Jordan Wrigley
Outstanding Service to the School Award
Katie Kehoe
SILS Undergraduate Honors Thesis - Highest Honors
Preston Smith - “Human AI Partnership In Underwriting: A Task-Centered Analysis of the Division of Work.” Advised by Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi
SILS Diversity Advocate Certificate
Stephanie Crowell
Sharon Demorest
Catherine Gallagher
Meg McMahon
Archives and Records Management (ARM) Concentration
Yuquiao Cao
Clare Carlson
Stephanie Crowell
Leon Dure
Gabrielle Hale
Meredith Kite
Tierra Thomas
Katherine Trathen
Caroline Waller
Adams Apprenticeship Program (2018-2019)
Nkechinyere Nwoko
ALISE Jean Tague-Sutcliffe Doctoral Student Research Poster Competition First-Place Award
Megan Threats
American Library Association Spectrum Scholar
Karina Soni
Association of Research Libraries Kaleidoscope Program Diversity Scholar
Phillip Thomas MacDonald
Mittie Barnwell Scholarship
Kayla Dowdy
Beta Phi Mu Epsilon Chapter Scholarship
Alexander Chisum
Paul Khawaja
Nkechinyere Nwoko
Beta Phi Mu Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship
Megan Threats
Lottie & Marvin Boykin Scholarship
Kayla Dowdy
Lisa Burmeister Computer & Information Science Fellowship
Lynnee Argabright
Mariesha McAdoo
Chancellor’s Doctoral Candidacy Award, UNC Graduate School Initiative for Minority Excellence
Megan Threats
Community Workshop Series Coordinator
Katie Kehoe
Environmental Protection Agency Library Internship
Brooke Csuka
Macy Ferguson
Sarah Guy
Margaret McGuire
Carolina Academic Library Associate
Anicka Austin
Claire Cahoon
Alex Chisum
Samantha Rae Gaufo Mandani
Lydia Jean Neuroth
Todd Smith
Carolina Technology Associate
Kathleen Diane Lowry
Mariesha Rosalita McAdoo
Ardis Kipp Cohoon Scholarship
Rachael Head
Grail-Valkyries Scholarship
Kayla Dowdy
Michael Hooker Fellowship
Anusha Suresh
Horizon Award, UNC Graduate School
Megan Threats
Humanities Professional Pathway Award
Emily Claire Crockett
International P.E.O. Scholar Award
Megan Threats
Leadership in Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) / University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) Trainee/Fellowship
Nkechinyere Nwoko
Margaret Ellen Kalp Fellowship
Evan Jared Miles
Michelle Suzanne Runyon
Jordan Wrigley
Medical Library Association Scholarship
Jordan Wrigley
Kathleen Moore Fellowship
Katie Kehoe
Amy Elizabeth Morgan Assistantship
Isabel Crevasse
Litwin Books Dissertation Research Award
Elliott Ayers Hauser
J. Stanley Tucker London Honors Scholarship
Kayla Dowdy
Phi Beta Kappa
Chase Andrew Pasciuto
The Hayden B. Renwick Academic Achievement Award
Kayla Dowdy
Shuford Study Abroad Scholarship
Kayla Dowdy
Student Vision Scholar, Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Medical Library Association
Jordan Wrigley
Society for Scholarly Publishing Student Fellow
Lynnee Argabright
Lurraine Tansey Travel Award
Emily Claire Crockett
Garneta Taormina Memorial Student Travel Award
Emily Claire Crockett
UNC-Chapel Hill Dissertation Completion Fellowship
Megan Threats
University Dean’s List Honoree
Kayla Dowdy
Neil Nainesh Mehta
UNC School of Information and Library Science Undergraduate Scholarship
Elizabeth Anne Bueche
Solomon Duncan
Rachael Head
Lydia Heater
Karley Amanda Wheeler
Something missing? Something wrong? Please let us know if you spot any errors on these pages, and we’ll correct them as soon as possible.
20+ SILS 2020 Graduates
Read some short reflections from more than 20 of our doctoral, master's, and undergraduate program 2020 graduates.
The SILS commencement ceremony traditionally includes the presentation of the Teaching Excellence, Distinguished Alumni, and Good of the Order awards. Congratulations to all the 2020 award recipients!
2020 Deborah Barreau Award for Teaching Excellence
- Marijel (Maggie) Melo (Faculty Award)
- Emily Roscoe (Adjunct Award)
2020 SILS Distinguished Alumni Award
- Kathryn Cole (MSLS '07)
- Meredith Evans (PhD '06)
2020 For the Good of the Order Award
- Aaron Brubaker, SILS Information Technology Director
- Brian Nussbaum, Desktop Support and Help Desk Manager
Listen to a recording or read advice for graduates from SILS alumnus Jason Griffey (MSLS'04), who had been invited to deliver the SILS spring commencement address. Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the National Information Standards Organization (NISO).
Watch a special message from SILS faculty and staff to 2020 graduates.

Above: photo of the illuminated Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower by John Gardiner, UNC-Chapel Hill.
Top image: Photos of 2020 Carolina graduates, including Libby Soucaze (BSIS ’20) who appears in the picture leaning against the camera, sit on the bleachers at Kenan Stadium in May. University Photographer Johnny Andrews captured the initial images via Zoom and then used a vintage Polaroid 195 camera to create a unique photo essay that was published online.