Syracuse University School of Information Studies Ph.D. candidate Jaime Snyder won the 2010 Thompson Reuters Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Scholarship, presented annually by the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T). Snyder will receive the $1,500 scholarship during an awards luncheon Tuesday, October 26 at the 2010 ASIS&T Conference in Pittsburgh.
A seven-member panel selected Snyder’s proposal Image-Enabled Discourse: An Investigation of the Creation of Visual Information as Communicative Practice based on its potential significance to the information science field. They also considered the validity of her methodology and analysis, originality of the work, and the clarity of her ideas.
“Of the many outstanding Ph.D. students whom I have advised over the years, Jaime stands out as the one whom I believe most likely to establish a new research direction for our field,” said iSchool Dean and Snyder’s Faculty Advisor Elizabeth D. Liddy, in a letter of support to the scholarship committee. “Jaime is highly deserving of this prestigious award and will do the organization proud with what she accomplishes both now with her dissertation and in the years ahead.”
Snyder’s proposal focuses on the role that the creation of visual information plays in communication, specifically in face-to-face conversations. She studies the role that spontaneously created visualizations—such an impromptu napkin drawings—play in transferring information during a conversation, or a phenomenon called image-enabled discourse.
In addition to the $1,500, Snyder will receive up to $500 toward travel and other expenses to attend the conference.
Snyder holds an MFA in painting from Stanford University and a BFA in painting and glassworking from Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Snyder has taught courses in studio art, digital media, web design, interaction design, and information presentation. She is also the iSchool’s Liaison for Interdisciplinary Curriculum Development. Among her honors, she received the 2010 iConference Best Poster Award for her work, “Applying Multimodal Discourse Analysis to the Study of Image-Enabled Communication.”