Meet Our Alumni

Information School Graduates, whether at Undergraduate, Masters or Doctoral level, are excellently equipped to enter the global jobs market in a wide range of professional fields, or to go on to further study at home or abroad.

You can find the stories of some of our graduates below, as well as on our Research Student webpages.

Our Graduates

Emma Hadfield
Learning Resources Manager: Thomas Rotherham College (MA Librarianship Graduate, Information School, University of Sheffield, 2007-2008).

I graduated from the Information School in 2008 gaining the MA Librarianship qualification. On leaving the Information School, I chose to pursue a career in the academic library sector and was able to secure my first professional post as a Senior Assistant Librarian at the University of Huddersfield. I worked alongside my MA dissertation supervisor to generate a conference paper based on my MA dissertation, which I later presented at an international conference. When my contract ended I secured a managerial role as the Learning Resources Manager at Thomas Rotherham College, a sixth form college for students aged 16-19. The MA programme was integral for this position as it widened my professional knowledge and provided a firm grounding in management. As part of my current role I encourage, motivate and teach students to develop their research skills and their ability to use technology and prepare them for today´s information society. I also manage a budget and develop printed and electronic collections. Alongside this I line manage a team, which includes seeking and creating opportunities for their continuing professional development. During my career progression I have worked on a portfolio of evidence of my professional development which has enabled me to successfully qualify as a Chartered Member of CILIP.

David Bawden
Professor of Information Science, City University, London (MSc Information Studies (1973) and PhD graduate (1978)).

I came to Sheffield to do a Masters in Information Studies in 1973, immediately after finishing a degree in chemistry, and later focused on scientific information, doing a PhD on chemical structure handling for property prediction. I then took step of going to work in pharmaceutical research, with Pfizer at Sandwich and spent the next decade involved with a variety of chemical and pharmaceutical information problems, and was happy to keep links with academia, largely through joint studentships with Peter Willett.
I returned to academic life in 1990, at the Department of information Science at City University London, initially as a senior lecturer and latterly as Professor of Information Science. While I retain a strong interest in scientific information, I think of myself now as much more of a generalist, with a particular focus on the history and philosophy of the information sciences, and I edit Journal of Documentation, perhaps the most wide-ranging of academic library/information journals. Work with George Soros´ Open Society Institute library/information programmes has given me a continuing involvement with education and training in Central and Eastern Europe. Keeping links with Sheffield, as an external examiner for PhD students and taught programmes, has been a particular pleasure.

Chris Rhodes
Economic Specialist, Economic Policy and Statistics section, House of Commons Library (MA Librarianship Graduate, Information School, University of Sheffield, 2006-2007).

I graduated from the Department for Information Studies in 2007 with an MA Librarianship. A month after handing in my dissertation I started work in the House of Commons Library. I worked in the Indexing and Data Management Section, ensuring that Hansard (the daily record of everything said in the Chamber) was organised in a searchable format by applying metadata from the Parliamentary Thesaurus.
In 2011, I was promoted and I am now an economic specialist in the Economic Policy and Statistics Section of the Library. My specialist subjects are unemployment, and skills and training policy. My job involves answering detailed enquires from MPs impartially, accurately and in a short period of time. I also produce longer Research Papers which provide comprehensive overviews of various subjects.
The challenge of representing an institution with a such a formidable reputation for accuracy and impartiality is rewarding. The skills and abilities constantly called on in this job (attention to detail, formal respect for sources, accurate use of language, rigorous argument backed up by comprehensive research) are ones emphasised on the MA Librarianship course. The introduction to research and the world of work given by the department are constantly of value.

Lorraine Fiander-Hill
Compliance Training and Policy Manager, Ogier (MSc Information Management Graduate, 2000-2001).

Following a major life change, I went back into education as a mature student and undertook a BSc. I then came to Sheffield to study for an MSc in Information Management in 2001 and was an even more mature student at 36. I had helped colleagues out with IT, while I was an undergraduate, and had discovered I had a passion for information and its technologies. Towards the end of my year, I successfully applied for a lecturing position in the college I had previously attended in Jersey, and went on to train as a lecturer and complete my PGCE. In the space of 8 years: I gained 2 degrees; became a qualified lecturer and computer engineer; presented a paper at an international conference and gained professionalmemberships to teaching and IT institutions and won several awards for my studies.I decided to move into the finance industry and now, two years on, am half way through the qualifying scheme for Chartered Secretaries and am working for a fantastic company, an offshore, multi-jurisdictional, law and financial services firm, as their global Compliance Training and Policy Manager. I work partly in the knowledge management field and regularlyuse a lot of what I learnt at Sheffield. I´m considering the possibility of a PhD,but who knows what the next ten years will bring?