Syracuse University School of Information Studies Dean Elizabeth D. Liddy G’77, G’88 was elected unanimously by iCaucus members as chair-elect for a two-year term beginning in 2012.
The iCaucus is an international educational organization consisting of deans from a growing number of leading information schools across the globe who have joined together to build awareness of, support for, and involvement with the information field. These iSchools lead in the research and teaching of the relationships among information, people, and technology.
The chair coordinates the iCaucus, the governing body of 24 iSchools, setting the agenda for bi-monthly meetings and acting as the iSchools representative to various organizations. The chair leads the activities of its members, including the planning of the annual iConference, a three- to four-day forum for faculty, students, and researchers to share their work and to develop their extended network of colleagues.
“I’m both pleased and honored by my election to this position,” Liddy said. “Being an ardent supporter of the iSchool vision, I am eager to contribute my ideas, energy, and leadership. I believe we are now seeing just the first impacts and contributions that the study and teaching of the information disciplines will have on all aspects of our lives. The faculty members of the iSchools around the world sense the growing significance of our field and are very inspiring colleagues to work with and lead.”
Until assuming her responsibilities in 2012, Liddy will shadow current iCaucus chair-elect Harry Bruce, dean of the University of Washington’s Information School. Bruce will formally take over for current chair and Illinois iSchool Dean John Unsworth during the 2010 iConference at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in February.
“I am delighted that Liz has been chosen as the chair-elect of the iCaucus,” Bruce said. “She is an outstanding leader and wonderful colleague. I look forward to working closely with Liz and the iCaucus to promote the information field and enhance the visibility and excellence of iSchools around the world.”
The Syracuse iSchool was a founding member of the iCaucus, which originally started in 1988 as an informal group of deans, including former Syracuse iSchool Dean Don Marchand, who led library and information science schools. It was reconstituted in 2001, and eventually developed under the leadership of a few deans, including former Syracuse iSchool Dean Raymond F. von Dran, into the formal organization that exists today.
Elizabeth D. Liddy is Dean and Trustee Professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, ranked #1 in information systems by U.S. News & World Report. Prior to being named Dean in February, 2008, Liddy was founding director of the Center for Natural Language Processing (CNLP), which advances the development of human-like language understanding software capabilities for government, commercial and consumer applications.
Liddy has led 65 research projects with funding from various government agencies, foundations, and commercial enterprises. She has authored more than 110 research papers and given hundreds of conference presentations on her work. Liddy was the founding president of TextWise LLC, which she led from 1994-99 in the development of a search engine ultimately used by the U.S. Patent Office. In addition, she is inventor or co-inventor on 7 patents in the area of NLP. Liddy has taught in the areas of Natural Language Processing, Information Retrieval, and Data Mining. Liddy is also Chair of ACM-SIGIR, the premier professional organization for the field of search, for the 2007-2010 term. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English language and literature from Daemen College and an M.L.S. and a Ph.D. in information transfer, both from SU.