Liz Liddy

Liddy grew up in Utica, New York.[1] She was one of five children, all of whom worked in her father's family business.[1] Liddy attended St. Francis DeSalle High School, where she was awarded a Regent's Scholarship, and eventually attended Daemen College.[1] She was literary editor of her high school year book and edited a literary magazine during her time at college.[2] At Daemen College Liddy studied English language and literature.[1] After graduating Liddy remained in New York, where she volunteered in an elementary school library.[1][3] She joined the Syracuse University School of Information Studies in 1983, where she started a graduate program in library science.[1] She worked as a faculty librarian at Onondaga Community College whilst earning her degree.[2] Here Liddy worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor, whilst completing her doctorate part-time in information transfer.[4] Her dissertation research involved natural language processing, a computerized approach to analyzing text.[5][6] She was hired to the faculty at Syracuse University whilst completing her PhD.[1][7]

In 1994 Liddy was the founding President of TextWise, a semantics-based search engine.[1][2][8] The first product she developed was called Document Retrieval Using Linguistic Knowledge (DR-LINK).[2] She left TextWise in 1999, after growing the number of employees to over 50.[9] She started the Syracuse University Center for Natural Language Processing in 1999,[2] and was honored with the university's Outstanding Alumni Award the following year.[10]

Liddy was appointed Dean of the School of Information Studies (iSchool) in 2008, and held the position for over ten years. She temporarily left the role in 2015.[4] The school was transformed under her leadership, increasing the enrollment of students by over 70% and launching a graduate certificate in data science.[4] She raised over $20 million to support research and development at Syracuse University.[4]

She chaired the iSchool Organization, which connects information science schools all over the world, from 2012 to 2014.[4] Liddy worked to increase the representation of women at the iSchool, through initiatives such as the IT Girls Overnight Retreat – an annual weekend to introduce high school girls to Information Technology.[4] She improved the career development programs of students at Syracuse University, increasing student employment to almost 100% post graduation.[4] Liddy retired as Dean of the iSchool in 2019.[4]

Liddy was married shortly after graduating Daemen College in 1966.[1] She has three children.[1]