The University of Tennessee School of Information Sciences is very pleased to welcome two new faculty members to our community of scholars. Both Mr. Devendra Potnis and Dr. Kimberly Douglass will join our faculty this August.

Kimberly Douglass

Kimberly Douglass is currently a Post-doctoral Research Associate with the Center for Information and Communication Studies and the DataONE grant, in which Suzie Allard and Carol Tenopir are also playing key roles. Her research addresses three important areas: environmental policy, science policy, and commodity resource policy, particularly those related to diamonds, copper, and gold. Dr. Douglass’s research seeks to understand the influence scientific data has on the policymaking process; the value policymakers place on scientific data vis-à-vis personal ideologies, campaign promises, and constituent concerns; and how policymakers determine which scientific data to use.

Her interest in environmental policy began when she was a Senior Legislative Research Analyst at the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury, Office of Research and Education Accountability. She continued exploring these interests as a policy analyst for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, as an intern at the Wilderness Society in Washington D.C., and as a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Tennessee Energy, Environment, and Resource Center.

Dr. Douglass received her Ph.D. in Political Science, Comparative Politics, and International Relations at the University of Tennessee. She earned her Master of Public Administration Degree from Tennessee State University, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in Liberal Arts.

Devendra Potnis

Mr. Devendra Potnis is completing his Ph.D. at the State University of New York where his dissertation research examines the role of cell phones in shaping the information behavior of women entrepreneurs from rural India, earning less than a dollar per day. His research focuses on innovative IT solutions in microfinance, which is a platform for empowering the poor, by offering them recurring small loans. His other research interests relate to social informatics, digital governance, information behavior and microfinance, and where information technology is applied at the intersection of society, government and business.

Mr. Potnis has a Master of Public Administration degree from the State University of New York, where he specialized in Information Decision-Making and Information Management. He also has a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he specialized in security and networking. His Bachelor Degree is in Computer Engineering from the University of Mumbai.

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Joel Southern
Communications Specialist
School of Information Sciences
College of Communication and Information
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
1345 Circle Park Drive, Suite 451
Knoxville, TN 37996-0341
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(865) 974-6727
jsouthern at utk dot edu
www.sis.utk.edu