The USA's first informatics honours society will introduce its inaugural class at a special ceremony April 19 hosted by the Indiana University School of Informatics
The Alpha Chapter of Iota Nu Phi National Honors Society for Informatics will induct over 100 members at the Indiana Memorial Union Oak Room on the IU Bloomington campus.
"The creation of Iota Nu Phi provides an excellent opportunity to bring academic recognition to our undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students," says School of Informatics dean Michael Dunn.
"It also creates a collaborative atmosphere for scholars in this emerging area and recognition for the discipline." Plans call for the inclusion of the school's faculty and alumni in future years.
The society was founded in 2004 by Dunn and the deans of two other information technology schools who have taken the lead nationally in offering formal informatics degree programmes.
Dunn chairs the INP's board of directors, which also includes David Penniman, dean of informatics at State University of New York-Buffalo; David McDonald, chair of the Informatics programme at the University of Washington; and Susan Quinn, assistant dean at the IU School of Informatics.
"We are proud of this year's inductees," notes Dunn.
"They have distinguished themselves in myriad ways and are paving a path for others to follow in education, research and professional careers." Informatics is an evolving field that studies and explains the impact of information technology and develops new uses for it in areas such as health, science, the arts, education, business and industry.
The IU School of Informatics was established in 2000 - the first and the largest of its kind in the USA - and has nearly 1600 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in programmes at IU campuses in Bloomington, Indianapolis and South Bend.
An undergraduate degree programme at IU Southeast-New Albany gets under way the fall semester of 2006.
