Andrew Dillon, dean of the School of Information (iSchool) at The University of Texas at Austin, was inducted as president of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASISandT) during the organization’s annual meeting in Baltimore on Oct. 31.
Dillon has been a member of ASISandT since 1995 and has served as director at large for three years, as editorial board member of the ASISandT journal, as program chair for both the ASISandT annual conference and the Information Architecture (IA) Summit and as a member of the publications task force.
“A major part of the coming year’s efforts will focus on increasing international membership in the society, ensuring greater connectivity to students and professionals across the information disciplines, and building bridges with related organizations such as the iSchools Caucus,” said Dillon.
“My goal is to help ASISandT shape a better understanding about the valuable contributions of information science in solving socio-technical problems of our increasingly interconnected world. Most scholarly and professional associations are having to reinvent themselves to offer value to members, and I see our mission as one to advance the information sciences as relevant to a much broader community of scholars and practitioners than we currently engage.”
Dillon has served as dean of the iSchool since 2002 and holds appointments in the Department of Psychology in the College of Liberal Arts and in the Department of Information, Risk, and Operations Management in the McCombs School of Business.
He previously served on the faculty of Indiana University and as research fellow of Loughborough University UK. He received his Ph.D. in 1991 from Loughborough and a master of arts (first class) from University College Cork in 1987.
In his 20 years as an active researcher and professor of the human response to information technology, Dillon has held appointments in departments or schools of cognitive science, computer science, psychology, instructional systems technology, management information systems, library and information science, and information.
ASISandT is celebrating its 75th anniversary and has more than 2,000 members and almost 80 chapters and special interest groups operating worldwide. ASISandT edits, publishes and disseminates publications concerning research and development; convenes annual meetings providing a forum for papers, discussions and major policy statements; and acts as a sounding board for the promotion of research and development and for the education of information professionals.
