Jynelle Gracia, a Dean’s Graduate Fellow in non-fiction writing, with Associate Dean Sandra Barkan, who administers Graduate College fellowships.

This generous endowment will establish the Kenneth T. Key Graduate Fellowship, which will be awarded to top Taiwan-born graduate scholars. The funds will provide a tuition scholarship for one scholar each year. Thanks to Key, the Graduate College will be able to offer opportunities to these outstanding graduate students.

The Graduate College pledges to be a good steward of this endowed scholarship. The College will form a selection committee of deans and distinguished graduate faculty from a variety of disciplines to ensure that the fellowship is awarded to top candidates from diverse areas of graduate study. Once selected, the scholarship recipient will be introduced to the community of Taiwanese and other international scholars at Iowa, further strengthening cultural ties and support.

The UI Graduate College recognizes the benefits of attracting scholars from diverse backgrounds. By offering access to graduate education to these talented individuals, the Graduate College fosters a broad learning environment and creates a center for converging perspectives that mirrors the world around us.

Through this award, the Graduate College demonstrates its commitment to further an educational atmosphere that prioritizes complex interactions and encourages students to contribute as active participants in our pluralistic, democratic society.

The College is honored that Kenneth Key would support graduate education at The University of Iowa. Donations such as these advance the Graduate College mission to create an academic and intellectual climate that respects diversity, values creativity, and supports development of the professional potential of each student.

For further information, visit:
www.grad.uiowa.edu/students/financialsupport

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Fellowships for post-comprehensive exam students
•  Ballard and Seashore Dissertation-year
    Fellowships (humanities)
•  Social Sciences Dissertation-year         
    Fellowships
•  T. Anne Cleary International    
    Dissertation Research Fellowships
    Graduate College Summer Fellowships

Other graduate awards
•   Pelzer Fellowships (arts and history)
•   Graduate Incentive Fellowships (research enhancement)
•   Summer Intensive Language
     Scholarships
•   Macbride Scholarships

Undergraduate research and outstanding senior awards
•   Summer Research Opportunities
     Program (SROP)
•   Joseph E. and Ursil I. Callen Prize
•   Sanxay Prize

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Information extraction
UI professor Marc Light researches solutions to this dilemma for the biosciences, a field overflowing with detailed, interrelated data. Light is developing information extraction techniques to build “systems that automatically extract ‘structured’ information from ‘unstructured’ scientific prose and populate database tables with it,” he says. “Such structured information facilitates subsequent data mining and data discovery processing.”

To this end, Light employs complex, interdisciplinary processes as basic building blocks. “The processes behind speech recognition systems were developed by electrical engineers, computer scientists, and linguists,” he says. “Such examples of the intersection of language and computation have served as springboards for my research.”

The Machete Project
As part of his research, Light and UI colleagues have launched the Machete Project. His research colleagues are Shannon Bradshaw, assistant professor of management sciences, Tippie College of Business; David Eichmann, director of the School of Library and Information Science; and Debashish Bhattacharya, director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Genetics.

The Machete Project is an interdisciplinary endeavor to build a tool that will help researchers assemble, save, and share knowledge from their research literature. Such a tool would help researchers manage the knowledge held in their field and prevent costly duplication of efforts. Machete 0.1 was released this fall and is being tested in the Bhattacharya lab in the biological sciences department.

Interdisciplinary teaching
Recognizing that interdisciplinary teaching requires thoughtful strategy, Light has developed courses accordingly.

“Students vary widely in their prerequisite knowledge, their goals, and their assumptions about the technology,” he says. “Courses need to be self-contained, without diminishing the end understanding or lowering the academic expectations of the course.”

To meet this challenge, Light has created web interfaces to remove the need for specific programming and operating system knowledge, and assignments are designed to allow students to focus on their fields of interest.

Impact of research
Light’s work has implications for many fields, including cognitive science, computer science, electrical engineering, library and information science, linguistics, neuroscience, and speech pathology. The technology he envisions could help business schools, teachers of second languages, and those seeking to review detailed literature “in any field where more is written than can be read,” he says.

For more information
Marc Light: http://que.info-science.uiowa.edu/~light
Machete Project: http://dollar.biz.uiowa.edu/~sbradsha/machete

Links to the Graduate College’s nine interdisciplinary programs
www.grad.uiowa.edu/gradprograms/interdisciplinary.htm

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Last fall we completed our first formal review of the Graduate College as an entity separate from the Office of the Vice President for Research. As a part of that process, the College outlined a plan to continue building on our tradition of excellence in graduate education at The University of Iowa. President David Skorton and Executive Vice President and Provost Michael Hogan “fully support the principles that have emerged,” agreeing with our recommendations to continue support for key initiatives:

•    Increasing student financial support
•    Enhancing interdisciplinary programs
•    Strengthening diversity recruiting

The Graduate College’s plan will build on these strengths with reforms in fund allocation to the graduate programs across campus. The University of Iowa’s campus-wide strategic plan highlights these priorities as well, underscoring the Graduate College’s commitment to these efforts.

Provost Hogan has commended the Graduate College, noting that it “has fostered new programs, facilitated the development of existing graduate degree programs, and offered additional financial support as well as training opportunities to graduate students throughout the University—and all this done in spite of challenging fiscal conditions.”

Thank you for supporting the UI Graduate College in its long tradition of investing in scholarly endeavors that train a long list of significant contributors to our society. That list includes professionals such as teachers, engineers, chemists, librarians, computer scientists, writers, nurses, artists, and researchers in many fields that contribute to life here in Iowa and beyond. We look forward to enhancing our efforts for graduate education at The University of Iowa.

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Enhancing interdisciplinary programs
•   Open avenues for the development of new interdisciplinary programs
•   Continue support for existing programs

Strengthening diversity recruiting
•   Increase opportunities for underrepresented scholars
•   Fund the Dean’s Graduate Fellowship, a major recruiting tool that attracts top
    graduate scholars
•   Continue to offer the Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP)
•   Hire a new associate dean for graduate recruiting and diversity affairs

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SROP encourages these promising scholars to consider the broad range of professional opportunities available through graduate education, with the hope that many will pursue academic careers.

Through SROP, scholars are paired with faculty mentors whose work corresponds with their academic interests and career goals. More than 160 UI faculty mentors have participated in the program at Iowa.

SROP is a competitive, all-expenses-paid program. The Graduate College provides stipends, room, board, and travel for successful undergraduate applicants.

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Graduate College News is published in the fall and spring.

The University of Iowa prohibits discrimination in employment, educational programs, and activities on the basis of race, national origin, color, creed, religion, sex, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or associational preference. The University also affirms its commitment to providing equal opportunities and equal access to University facilities. For additional information contact the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, (319) 335-0705.