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Student Profiles: Tim Hogan

For Tim Hogan, library and information science has not only been a life long interest, but also a family affair. Both his sister and brother-in-law are information professionals and they, as well as Tim, earned a bachelor's degree from the School of Information Sciences (SIS) at the University of Pittsburgh. At first Tim did not much appreciate his undergraduate program, with its hodge-podge of concepts and theories and numerous skills-based, technology-driven courses. His real interest in pursuing a career in LIS was heightened by a professor he had during the later half of his sophomore year. Dr. Anthony Debons taught his students that at its core, LIS is really about using information (and information systems) to help people and extend their abilities to solve problems and meet the challenges of everyday life. That perspective resonated with Tim. Soon after, he enrolled in independent study courses with Dr. Debons and began working on other research projects with him. It wasn't long before Tim realized he wanted to further his education in the LIS field.

Towards the end of his senior year of college, Tim took a position at the University of Pittsburgh's Division of Infectious Diseases. He was hired to do systems-related work, to manage websites, develop databases, and so on. However, it was seeing people with different ailments coming to the Division to receive treatment and care that truly affected Tim during his time there. It got him thinking about the information needs and the information problems that people face in managing their own health. In particular, the Division served many people with HIV disease and AIDS. Tim wondered how AIDS-related information could be most efficiently delivered to the public, the information sources that the HIV-positive community uses, and the barriers they encounter when seeking information.

Tim graduated with a BS in Information Science and a business minor in April of 2000. His pursuit of LIS education did not stop there and he chose to attend GSLIS because of the diverse research interests of the faculty and the supportive environment the school offered. Tim earned his master's degree from GSLIS in May 2002. Yet even before graduation, he knew he wanted to pursue a PhD in the LIS field. He was worried, however, that it might be better to first gain additional work experience as an information professional. His time in the GSLIS master's program allowed him to work closely with faculty members such as Carole Palmer and Boyd Rayward. They encouraged Tim to enroll in the doctoral program, and he decided it was the right time to further pursue his education and to develop his research and teaching abilities.

Currently, Tim is working with Carole Palmer on a project that began when he was a master's student in her course, Use and Users of Information. The students were charged with the task of designing and carrying out their own research project-including writing a literature review, selecting a methodology, and collecting and analyzing data. Tim decided to study the information-seeking behaviors of people with HIV disease and AIDS and through his contacts at the University of Pittsburgh, was able to distribute a few surveys and collect some pilot data. Palmer later offered Tim the opportunity to do an independent study in order to scale up the project. Tim got in touch with a group of health educators interested in conducting a larger scale survey study of information seeking in the HIV-positive community. The collaboration took hold and it was not long before they had created a new survey instrument and distributed it through AIDS service organizations nationwide. The survey included questions about information sources and barriers, preferences for information, and the information practices of people with HIV/AIDS. Tim and Palmer have received over 660 surveys and have analyzed a substantial amount of the data. The survey results also provide a basis for Tim's dissertation. He plans to explore the role that information and information activities play in managing medications and adhering to treatment regimens for chronic diseases like HIV/AIDS. Tim has already started to explore this topic through a collaborative, interview-based study at an area Veterans Affairs (VA) Hospital.

Tim has worked as a teaching assistant at GSLIS for courses like Information Organization and Access and has co-taught other classes like Use and Users of Information. He is also a research assistant on Carole Palmer's NSF-funded project, Information and Discovery in Neuroscience. As part of Palmer's research team, he is investigating the information activities and resources associated with advances and roadblocks in neuroscience research. In his free time, Tim loves to golf and considers it a blessing that the weather here does not allow for it all year long. He also enjoys biking and amateur astronomy. You can learn more about Tim by browsing through his website.