Washington, DC — Doctoral student Adam E. Berkowitz and master’s student Sofía Isabel Crespo Maldonado are the 2024 recipients of the Paul Evan Peters Scholarship for graduate study in information science or closely related fields. The scholarship honors the memory of Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) founding executive director Paul Evan Peters. It recognizes outstanding scholarship and intellectual rigor, a commitment to civic responsibility and democratic values, and imagination.
“This year's outstanding and diverse applicant pool presented our committee with the best kind of challenging decision, ultimately leading to the selection of two superb awardees, Adam and Sofía, who both reflect and honor Paul’s legacy of driving positive social change through technology,” said CNI Executive Director Clifford Lynch.
Adam E. Berkowitz will enter his second year in the communication and information sciences PhD program at The University of Alabama this fall. His research examines the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on human creativity and intellectual property, especially music. He has published research on automated copyright enforcement systems, algorithmic content recommendation, and music-generating AI systems, and recently he has considered how the spread of AI-generated content will influence cataloging standards and information discovery. He believes libraries must educate the public on emerging technologies and advocate for transparency and democratic principles in their acquisition and use.
“Adam’s scholarly background in music and music librarianship affords him a unique vantage point from which to ask questions about the nature and capacity of artificial intelligence in generating creative musical content and what this means for issues of information retrieval, authority, ownership, and ethics,” wrote Miriam E. Sweeney, associate director and associate professor of the School of Library and Information Studies at The University of Alabama. “Adam locates his work in a tradition of information ethics that grapples with power dynamics in information access at the intersection of platforms, law, algorithmic culture, and social responsibility.”
