Diane H. Sonnenwald

Diane H. Sonnenwald is an information scientist and has held the position of Emerita Professor and Emerita Chair at the University College Dublin School of Information and Communication Studies since 2014. Prior to being Emerita Professor, Sonnenwald was Head of School and Head of Subject at the University College Dublin. Sonnenwald's work has focused the inter-disciplinary and inter-organizational collaborations of a variety of agencies, such as in emergency healthcare, in academia, and in industry. Sonnenwald has also been credited with championing the idea of "information horizon", which focuses on how the perceived information options influences one's information behaviors.

Biography

Education Sonnenwald received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and German from Muhlenberg College in 1976. In 1984, she received her Master's in Computer Science from Montclair State University. Upon completing her Ph.D., Sonnenwald was granted a National Science Foundation and NATO Postdoc Fellowship position for the Risø National Laboratory at the Technical University of Denmark. Sonnenwald has held professor positions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Gothenburg and University of Borås, University of Copenhagen, and at the National Taiwan Normal University prior to her positions at University College Dublin.

Career achievements and service Sonnenwald served as President of the Association for Information Science & Technology from 2011-2012 and was the first person working outside of North America to be elected to the position. In 2017, Sonnenwald was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from Muhlenberg College. Greenberg, J., Sonnenwald, D. H., Hartel, J., Montague, K., & Fourie, I. (2023, October 27–31). Reflecting on two decades of information horizons theory and method: Applications and innovations [Conference Session]. 86th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science & Technology, London, United Kingdom.