Executive Director
Project Information Literacy
Alison J. Head, Ph.D. is an information scientist and social science researcher. She is the founder and director of Project Information Literacy (PIL), a research institute that studies what it is like to be a student in the digital age. In a series of 10 groundbreaking research studies, PIL has investigated how college students and recent graduates utilize research skills, competencies, and strategies for completing course work and for solving information problems in everyday life. Since 2008, 13,000 "early adults" have participated in PIL studies. The institutional sample for PIL studies has consisted of 82 public and private colleges and universities, and community colleges located in the U.S. In a 2016 Inside Higher Education column, Barbara Fister called PIL, "hands-down the most important long-term, multi-institutional research project ever launched on how students use information for school and beyond." Alison has a Ph.D. in library information science from the University of California at Berkeley where she also received her BA. Currently, she is a Senior Researcher at the metaLAB at Harvard University and was awarded the Lee Lecture for library innovation and leadership by Harvard Library in 2017. Previously, from 2011 through 2015, Alison was a Fellow and Faculty Associate at the Berman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Head's research about today's students and their information practices began with a small study at Saint Mary's College of California, where she taught new media as the Roy O. Disney Visiting Professor in New Media for 10 years. More about Dr. Head's research and PIL is available at: http://projectinfolit.org
Saturday, June 23
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM