Hello i3 Supporters!

We are halfway through this year’s crowdfunding campaign and we have reached 32% of our goal! Many thanks to all of you for supporting our campaign and the mission of i3!

Please remember to share our campaign with your friends and family. If you are an i3 alum, share your story about your experience and ask the important people in your life for support. Every contribution helps us reach our goal!

As you know, i3 Scholars work in teams throughout the year researching real world problems at the intersection of people, information, and technology. This week, we’re featuring two teams from the 2019 Cohort and the projects they’re currently working on. Read the descriptions written by both teams below:

Team QTPI (Bea Fadrigon - University of Pittsburgh, Chantelle Roulston - Stony Brook University, Courtney Smith - Penn State University; Advised by PhD Candidate Juan F. Maestre, Indiana University Bloomington): Our team is studying ‘How Queer People of Color Use ICTs to Cope with Stigma.’ ICTs are information and communication technologies, such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, internet, etc. From our initial literature review, we have found that being a queer person of color is an intersectional identity that causes more stress for them than those who only hold one of those identities. These individuals often turn to online communities to connect with others who are like them. Our team is researching what kinds, if any, of coping mechanisms these users leverage based on the stigma they experience. Do they use technology-based coping mechanisms? Are these coping mechanisms are effective/efficient in mitigating the amount of stress they experience? We are currently conducting interviews to understand the lived experiences of the individuals in these communities. In our second phase, we’ll be using these results to inform a subsequent expanding on the themes that emerge from our interviews.

Phantom 5 (Jamie Ramos - University of Washington, Isabel Lopez - Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, Joseph Gonzalez - College of Westchester, Bongani Musikavanhu - New York University Shanghai; Advised by Dr. Brooke Auxier, Pew Research Center): Our team aims to understand why millennial women abandon the social media platform Snapchat. Despite a quick rise in popularity, Snapchat’s user base, particularly among millennial women, continues to wane. Because Snapchat’s unique affordances, such as the temporary nature of content, may offer benefits compared to other social media platforms, uncovering the underlying causes of abandonment is important for social media developers and users themselves. We are currently conducting a survey to better understand why millennial women abandon the Snapchat application.

Both Teams QTPI and Phantom 5 will be presenting their preliminary work at iConference 2020 in Sweden this upcoming March. Stay tuned to see how their projects evolve!

With four weeks left in our campaign, please join us in supporting these teams and empowering the next generation’s leading voices by donating now, or sharing the link: engage.pitt.edu/i3program

No gift is too small, and every donation is deeply appreciated! Thank you for your support!

Dear i3 Family and Friends,

We are seven weeks into our annual crowdfunding campaign and have reached 60% of our goal with 37 donors. Many thanks to all of you for supporting us and the mission of i3!

Remember to please share our campaign with your friends and family. If you are an i3 alum, share your story about your experience and ask the important people in your life for support. Every contribution helps us reach our goal.

This week’s campaign update will include a profile of one of our i3 Scholars, Rachel Ollivierre (2016 i3 Cohort). After Rachel graduated form the University of Pittsburgh with her bachelor's in Health Services, she attended Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University for a Master's in Health Care Policy and Management. Rachel has focused her graduate studies on marrying analytics and health care and has recently accepted a Marketing Research and Analytics position at Merck. We’re extremely proud of her accomplishments and look forward to following along the next chapter in her journey.

Rachel is a great example of the talent that joins i3 and benefit from your support. Congratulations to her and her well-earned success!

Cheers,

Aderin Falana (2015 i3 Cohort)

Alumni Coordinator

Dear i3 Friends and Family,

Our annual crowdfunding campaign is live! https://engage.pitt.edu/i3program

If you are able, please consider donating to this year’s campaign. 100% of all funds raised go directly towards supporting our i3 Scholars. If you have already contributed to this year’s campaign, thank you very much! To help us keep the momentum going, please share our campaign website with your friends and colleagues. Ask them to help support i3 with a contribution of any amount. Every little bit helps!

2018 has been a fantastic year for i3 - in large part because of your support! Here are some highlights from the program’s 8th year:

• We welcomed our newest cohort of 27 i3 Scholars, representing 22 colleges and universities and 16 different states and territories
• 9 i3 teams’ research projects were accepted to and presented at the 2018 iConference in Sheffield, England (8 posters and 1 full paper - see photos below!)
• i3 hosted the first annual BUILD Summit (Building Inclusion, Leadership, and Diversity in the Information Sciences), attended by over 100 i3 Alumni, Faculty / Staff / Administrators from over 30 colleges and universities, representatives from 10 industry-leading companies, and Program Managers from 5 private and public foundations and funding agencies
• 9 i3 teams’ research projects were accepted to the 2019 iConference with a record-breaking 4 posters, 3 short papers, and 1 full paper! (2 teams collaborated on one paper)

2018 was a tremendous year, and we’re excited to build on this success to make 2019 our best year yet! Thank you so much for your continued support - i3 continues to thrive because of you, our i3 Family. 

With deep appreciation and thanks,

Kayla Booth

i3 Director

Dear i3 friends and family,

I am thrilled to announce that our campaign was a success! We raised 106% of our goal -- surpassing our $5,000 target by over $300. A total of 86 people contributed to our campaign, demonstrating the breadth of support and impact this program has had on i3 Scholars, PhD Teaching Fellows, lecturers, research advisors, and other supporters.

As we look forward to this summer's institute, please save the date for July 12-13. We will be hosting a summit on diversity in the information sciences, including an i3 alumni reunion, networking events, and professional development opportunities. We will have more information to share soon. We look forward to seeing you this summer!

Thank you again for your support!

Mike Depew

Dear i3 friends and family,

Merriam-Webster's word of the day yesterday was COHORT! This seems so fitting as we are now just over 24 hours from the close of our 2017 Fundraiser. With our goal at an awesome 93% completed we have less than $350 left to raise for this year's goal. We are certain that with your support, this goal will be easily met -- but it is only through donations before midnight tomorrow, January 12th that we will accomplish it!

As I already wrote above, yesterday's word of the day was cohort. Every year, i3 welcomes a new cohort of students to come into the i3 program. A new cohort to experience the rigors and fascination of the information sciences. A new cohort to bond together and problem solve their way through a month of workshops in research and leadership training in the Pittsburgh iSchool. And of course, a new cohort to emerge at the end of a full year, research paper and poster in hand, ready to conquer the iConference and the world of academia beyond.

It is our cohorts who make the i3 program what it is -- fiercely passionate, curious, and driven young people who are making waves in their respective fields and communities. We are proud to call all the scholars in our cohorts members of the i3 family. We hope that you will make the choice to support each of them, and the many future cohorts who join them, with even a small donation today.

Onward and upward,

Hannah Hiles, 2013 cohort

Alumni Association President

Hello i3 supporters!

We are midway through week 3 of our campaign and we have reached 36% of our goal! We are already up to 29 donors. Many thanks to all of you for supporting our campaign and the mission of i3!

Remember to share our campaign with your friends and family. If you are an i3 alum, share your story about your experience and ask the important people in your life for support. Every contribution helps us reach our goal!

This week's alumni profile is of Ricky Holtz, (i3 2013). Ricky graduated from University of Connecticut in 2014, where he created an individualized major around human-computer interaction. From there he took his talents to the iSchool at the University of California at Berkeley, where he completed a Master of Information Management and Systems, with a concentration in HCI and software engineering. Since completing graduate school, Ricky has already gained professional experience as a front end engineer and sales engineer at multiple start-ups in the Bay Area. In his spare time, Ricky serves as chair of the Communications Committee for the i3 Alumni Association Board and plays french horn.

Ricky is another wonderful example of the immense talent that is in the i3 network and he believes strongly in the mission of supporting underrepresented people in the information sciences. Congratulations to him on his many successes!

Dear i3 friends and family,

Our campaign is now in it's second week and we have raised 25% of our goal! Thank you very much those of you who have already contributed. To help us keep the momentum going, please share our campaign website with your friends and colleagues. Ask them to help support i3 with a contribution of any amount. Every little bit helps!

Also, with each week's campaign update we will include a profile of one of our i3 Scholars. This week, meet Taylor Neal (i3 2015). After Taylor graduated from Rice University with her bachelor's in psychology, she entered the Master of Science of Information Science (MSIS) program at the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information. Taylor has focused her graduate work on UX design and development and is currently working at Ariel Precision Medicine as a UI/UX designer. Earlier this year, she presented her i3 research project at iConference 2017 in Wuhan, China. Taylor has also served as a mentor and co-organizer of a local high school chapter of Girls Who Code.

Taylor is a fantastic example of the quality of students that join i3 and benefit from your support. Congratulations to her on all her hard-earned success and we wish her the very best in her future career!