Jeff Hemsley Named Interim Dean of the School of Information Studies

Incoming Interim Vice Chancellor and Provost Lois Agnew announced today that Jeff Hemsley, associate professor in the School of Information Studies (iSchool), will become the iSchool’s interim dean effective July 1.

“Jeff is a well-respected member of the iSchool community, engaged in committee work that impacts course development and academic excellence, and a trusted leader, mentor and teacher,” says Agnew. “Jeff can provide the strong and steady leadership to help the iSchool advance its strategic priorities during this transition period.”

Hemsley s쳮ds Dean Andrew Sears, who earlier this month announced his plan to depart the University for another academic leadership opportunity.

“I came to academia from industry because I saw the potential for creating opportunities for the next generation of thought leaders and doers in digital and interdisciplinary fields,” says Hemsley. “I am excited by this opportunity to support our faculty in their leading-edge research and our students in pursuit of knowledge and experiences that shape communities and industries. I look forward to working with my faculty colleagues to advance our vision and mission and deliver a best-in-class education to our students.”

Hemsley’s research mirrors the iSchool’s mission to explore the intersection of technology and humanity. He focuses on understanding how information flows on social media, the ways in which some people have more influence over those flows than others, and the ways that information flows manifest differently on different kinds of social media sites. Hemsley draws on theories and concepts such as information gatekeeping, personal influence and viral events, and uses exploratory data analysis (data visualization techniques), inferential statistics, social network analysis and content analysis to answer his questions. He teaches courses in information visualization and information organization.

Hemsley earned a Ph.D. from the University of Washington’s Information School, where he was a founding member of the university’s Social Media Lab. The lab received RAPID and INSPIRE awards from the National Science Foundation, an Amazon Web Services in Education research grant award, and a gift from Microsoft Research. His research has appeared in several journals, including Policy & Internet, American Behavioral Scientist and the Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce. He is co-author of the book “Going Viral” (Polity Press, 2013), which explains what virality is, how it works technologically and socially, and draws out the implications of this process for social change. The book received the ASIS&T Best Science Books of 2014 Information Award and was selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2014.

Before entering academia, Hemsley spent 15 years in the software industry as a software test engineer and quality assurance manager for major companies, including Autodesk and Symantec.