iSchool Faculty Tenure Appointments

Please join us in congratulating Doctor Heather O’Brien and Doctor Eric Meyers who begin this academic year as Associate Professors.  Both were promoted with tenure during the summer, in recognition of their outstanding research accomplishments, their dedication and service to the iSchool and their academic communities, and their excellent teaching contributions. This is very well deserved!

Doctor O’Brien joined the School in 2008 from Dalhousie University with a PhD focused on human information interaction and user engagement.  While at the iSchool, she has developed and successfully taught numerous courses, including MLIS core courses and the innovative, cross-listed Graduating Project course.  She has demonstrated leadership in many ways, notably through the establishment of the iSchool Research Day event and Chair of the Curriculum Committee.  Dr. O’Brien’s research in the area of user engagement with technology is internationally recognized and her user engagement measurement scale is widely used.  Her recently published book Why Engagement Matters, co-edited by Paul Cairns explores user engagement in digital media. In 2016, she was awarded her second  four-year SSHRC Insight Grant, “Antecedents and Learning Outcomes of Exploratory Search Engagement.”  This project leverages her long-term work in the area of user engagement with exploratory search.

Doctor Eric Meyers joined the School in 2009 from the University of Washington iSchool.  His research interests lie at the intersection of information science, the learning sciences, and new media studies. His publications span these areas and he is well known internationally for his research on collaborative information seeking and use among children and youth, virtual worlds, and new media literacies. Dr. Meyers has strengthened the School’s course offerings related to information literacy, instruction and new media through course development and innovation in the use of learning technologies, and, since 2015, he has been Chair of the multidisciplinary Master of Arts in Children’s Literature program.  His current research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) focuses on how early adolescents make decisions to use or reject information in the context of their daily lives. He is also actively engaged in community-based research, working to strengthen technology literacy among children through Raspberry Pi workshops offered in collaboration with local school and public libraries.