Welcome to the SLIS Doctoral Students Association Homepage
Welcome everyone! This is the homepage for the PhD students at the School of Library and Information Studies at UW-Madison. We PhD students take some of our required courses together, and we socialize at potluck dinners, lunches after class, occasional movies and occasional road trips.
Ah,we love Madison! It's a classic university town, with lots of ethnic restaurants, coffee houses, lectures, plays, art theaters, bookstores, bars, great music scene, bicycles, plus beautiful lakes, outdoor and team sports. The people are progressive and inclusive. The SLIS community is friendly, supportive, and congenial.
SLIS PhD students
Melissa Adler
- Hometown: Green Bay, WI
- Areas of interest: Access to information - particularly Library of Congress Subject Headings, classification, international librarianship, the digital divide, and the history of all of these things
- Hobbies and activities: Playing Spiderman v. Green Goblin, going to parks, swimming, and painting with Stella(5) and Gabriel(3); reading; bicycling
- Favorite Madison restaurant:Rising Sons Deli (I think their Paad Kaphao is the best meal I've ever tasted)
- Favorite book/movie/music: Books: Tipping the Velvet, by Sarah Waters; Foe, by J.M. Coetzee; The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco. Movies: Little Miss Sunshine. Music: Decemberists, Jenny Lewis, Bob Dylan, Beirut, Tom Waits
- Weird or fun fact about you: When I was a baby I repeatedly whacked my head against my crib for months - apparently it was soothing. I did it so much that I moved my crib across my room and had a big bump on the back of my head. My mom took me to the doctor to have my head examined. It might explain something about my current mental state.
- Website: http://www.madlerbrarian.com
Michelle Caswell
- Hometown: Chicago, IL
- Areas of interest: archives, archives in South and Southeast Asia, human rights, immigrant archives in the U.S.
- Hobbies and activities: riding my bike, cooking, travel
- Favorite Madison restaurant: Lao Laan-Xang
- Favorite book/movie/music: The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
- Weird or fun fact about you: I am obsessed with American Idol.
- Website: http://www.michellecaswell.org
Jacob Gapko
- Hometown: Eau Claire, WI
- Areas of interest: Electronic medical records, science and technology studies
- Hobbies and activities: Listening to music (especially The Rose Ensemble), watching movies, and reading
- Favorite Madison restaurant: Lao Laan Xang
- Favorite book/movie/music: The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse
- Weird or fun fact about you: I have seen the Todd River (Australia) in flood
Yuqi He
- Hometown: Yichang, Hubei Province, China
- Areas of interest: user behaviors, consumer health, and medical informatics
- Hobbies and activities: travel, movies, Yoga
- Favorite Madison restauarant: exploring
- Favorite book/movie/music: "Sleepless in Seattle", Taylor Swift, James Blunt
- Weird or fun fact about you: I was the commissary in charge of sports in college
Kyle Jones
- Hometown: Byron, IL
- Areas of interest: Social informatics, e-learning informatics, history and design of learning management systems, development and education of LIS professionals.
- Hobbies and activities: Visiting with family, being with my wife, and enjoying the races at Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI.
- Favorite Madison restaurant: Brasserie V and Barriques on Monroe
- Favorite book/movie/music: Book- Anything by Hemingway and Rowling's Harry Potter series.
Movie- Vanilla Sky, What Dreams May Come, Italian Job (original and remake)
Music- I'm all over the place... - Weird or fun fact about you: Nothing is more therapeutic for me than washing and detailing my MINI Cooper S.
Tammy Mays
- Hometown: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Areas of interest: : Consumer health, health literacy, and health disparities, and health information seeking needs and behaviors
- Hobbies and activities: Reading, riding my bicycle, knitting (just starting), and window shopping
- Favorite Madison restaurant: : La Mestiza has the best Mexican cuisine
- Favorite book/movie/music: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a classic / Love Jones / Anthony Hamilton and Kem
- Weird or fun fact about you: I ran my first marathon (yes, that's 26.2 miles) in 2006 and 2007. I'm the queen of finding free stuff or low cost fun things to do. Lastly, this summer (2010)I brought a brand new bicycle and in my mind, when I'm out riding, Lance Armstrong has nothing on me!
Soojin Park
- Hometown: Gwangju, Korea (ROK)
- Areas of interest: Documentation, Metadada, XML, Online learning, LIS education
- Hobbies and activities: Jogging, Yoga, and Window shopping
- Favorite Madison restauarant: Ian's Pizza(!), Imperial Garden(!!!)
- Favorite book/movie/music: I love all Josh Groban's songs
- Weird or fun fact about you: I'm very scared by insects because of their many legs, except spiders.
Jomkwan Polparsi (Jom)
- Hometown: Bangkok, Thailand
- Areas of interest: Information seeking behaviors, ICT literacy, professional development & adult education, reflective practice, and copyrights in library
- Hobbies and activities: Food (cooking and eating) and exploring the USA physically and electronically.
- Favorite Madison restaurant:Hubbard Avenue Diner, Maharaja, Himal Chuli, Saigon Noodles, Wah-Kee, and more.
- Favorite book/movie/music: "The Prophet" By Kahlil Gibran and "The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action" by Donald A. Schon.
- Weird or fun fact about you: I like fried cheese curds! But this is not weird when you live in Wisconsin!
J. Brenton Stewart
- Hometown: Charlotte, North Carolina (USA, North America)
- Areas of interest: Agricultural Information, Slavery as an Information Intensive Phenomenon, Digital Divides and Differences, History of Technology
- Hobbies and activities: International Film Buff and Foodie among other things
- Favorite Madison restaurant: Fugu, Taste of India, Pascals
- Weird or fun fact about you: I collect Brasilian license plates and when I get a dog I’ll name him Bosie.
- Favorite book/movie/music: The Namesake, Waylaid / I love Pedro Almodovar Films and Brasilian Music
Tien-I Tsai
- Hometown: Taipei, Taiwan
- Areas of interest: Academic libraries, information behavior, and scholarly communication
- Hobbies and activities: Reading & listening to classical music.
- Favorite Madison restaurant: New Seoul, Sunroom Cafe, and Fugu
- Favorite book/movie/music: Mozart's and Schumann's works, Mulan Pipa Concerto, and more.
- Weird or fun fact about you: I played Chinese lute, zhong-ruan, in the NTU Chinese Orchestra when I was in college.
Rachel Williams
- Hometown: Lexington, Kentucky
- Areas of interest: information seeking and behavior; human-computer interaction; influence of culture and environment on information seeking behaviors
- Hobbies and activities: Hiking/Camping, Strategic Boardgames (such as Settlers of Catan), Writing, Silk Painting, Brewing .
- Favorite Madison restaurant:The Weary Traveler
- Favorite book/movie/music: Books--100 Years of Solitude, Trainspotting, Hunger Games Trilogy, Anna Karenina, The Man Who Made Lists; Movies--Inception, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Music--Feist, The Weepies, The Shins, The Acorn, Fleetfoxes
- Weird or fun fact about you: I really can't stand it when food on my plate touches unless the food is baked or prepared together from the beginning.
Mei Zhang
- Hometown: Yibin, Sichuan Province, China
- Areas of interest: digital preservation, copyright in digital resource, user's behavior
- Hobbies and activities: jogging, cooking, Karaoke and hiking
- Favorite Madison restaurant: ichiban, Lao Laan Xang
- Favorite book/movie/music: Book--The besieged fortress by Zhongshu Qian, The Grave Robbers' Chronicles; Movie--Mary and Max, The terminal, films by Almodóvar; Music--every single song by Faye Wong and Eason Chan
- Weird or fun fact about you: 1) love all the numbers that can be divided by 3; 2) can't get rid of biting the pen.