Yongjun Zhu, a doctoral graduate of Drexel University’s College of Computing and Informatics (CCI), has been awarded a 2017 Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship by Beta Phi Mu, the International Library and Information Studies Honor Society. Beta Phi Mu announced the 2017 recipients at its business meeting and member reception on June 24, 2017, held in conjunction with the annual conference of the American Library Association (ALA). No more than six recipients are selected for this prestigious award each year. The fellowships ($3,000 each) are awarded to promising doctoral students who are working on their dissertations in library and information science, information studies, informatics, or a related field.
Zhu’s dissertation, “Graph-based Interactive Bibliographic Information Retrieval Systems” (supervised by Professor Erjia Yan, PhD and Professor Il-Yeol Song, PhD), proposes graph-based interactive bibliographic information retrieval systems that can address a variety of retrieval problems incurred by increasingly vast amounts of scholarly data. His dissertation is considered a pioneering work in applying big data technology to bibliographic information retrieval systems.
Zhu’s study has already garnered recognition in academia with publications in JASIST and the Journal of Informetrics (top journals in information science). Additionally, it has received attention for its practical application as evidenced by the fact that senior researchers from Web of Science have noticed and tracked his study. The systems proposed in his dissertation can effectively deal with problems that cannot be addressed in existing systems and are expected to have significant impact moving forward.
Yongjun Zhu is the second Drexel-affiliated researcher to receive the fellowship since 1999. “Dr. Garfield’s passing earlier this year made being selected for the fellowship an especially significant honor for me. I am extremely honored to be recognized for my work,” Zhu said.