Amelia Abreu
Amelia Abreu is a PhD candidate at University of Washington School of Information. Her dissertation, entitled “Sharing and Saving: Collaborative Collecting in the Networked Age,” examines collaborative archival collecting in Social Media Platforms. Prior to the PhD, she worked as an archivist and librarian at the University of Houston. She holds an MSIS from UT-Austin and a BA from the Evergreen State College.

Amelia Acker
Currently, I am a PhD candidate at UCLA, Information Studies where I study archives, electronic records and communication using mobile computing devices. In my doctoral research I focus on the material production and transmission of records created with mobile phones. With this research I analyze the history and stabilization of the Short Message Service format. I am interested in how technologists, recordkeepers (including archivists), and information scientists are confronting issues of digital materiality with the rise of emerging records formats and mobile networks. I have worked in libraries and archives in Southern California since 2006 and I bring my professional experiences to the critical study of records infrastructure and mobile networks.

Xiaomi An
Dr. Xiaomi An, is a professor of records and knowledge management at School of Information Resources Management, Renmin University of China (RUC). She is leader of Knowledge Management Team at Key Laboratory of Data Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (DEKE), Ministry of Education (MOE) at RUC; leader of International Research Front of Electronic Records Management Team at Electronic Records Management Research Center, RUC. She obtained a PhD degree in 2001 from University of Liverpool, UK. She had been awarded Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University, MOE in 2008. She is Fulbright Research Scholar of UCLA from September 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013. She is project leader of WG8 of ISO/TC46/SC11. Professor An has been the chairs of 29 research projects. She has published over 160 academic papers, authored 14 books, obtained 20 achievement awards. She had been invited to present 24 invited talks at international conferences. She is very active as an academic and expert in the field of recordkeeping in close relationship with other fields such as information resources management and knowledge management. Her interest is to better align or even integrate these different fields, and not see them as separate areas. Her focus is trying to enhance the value of records for wider communities and into other domains with her meta-synthetic management framework and holistic integration approaches, managing records as knowledge assets and information resources.

Kimberly Anderson
Kimberly Anderson is an Assistant Professor of Archives and Director of the Archives Program in the School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She received her Ph.D. from UCLA, where her dissertation examined how university archivists learn to appraise through social interaction. In addition to archivists and appraisal, her research interests include archival education and the sociocultural aspects of records and record keeping. She received her MLIS with a specialization in archives from UCLA in 2007. She received a BA in Humanities with a minor in Anthropology from Northern Arizona University. Anderson has worked in university archives, special collections, a rare books library, law libraries, and police records. Anderson is the immediate past chair of the Appraisal and Acquisitions section of the Society of American Archivists and currently serves on the SAA Committee on Education.

Denise Anthony
I am a recent appointee to the faculty of the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. As a lecturer, I will be teaching a variety of classes mostly in the archives area. Prior to moving to Chapel Hill, I spent seven years as the lead organizer and instructor for the archival courses – including appraisal, administration, description and access – at the University of Denver Library and Information Science Program. I believe class discussions of theory, issues and concerns in archives must be balanced with direct experience of how these are being implemented in practice in order to gain a solid understanding. To that end, I worked with a number of organizations in the Denver area to provide practical engagement and service learning opportunities for students. I also feel that critical thinking is a necessary skill in a rapidly changing professional environment when asking the right question is equally if not more important than a right answer.

I graduated with a PhD from the University of Michigan in 2006. My dissertation research looked at how experienced archivists search for and find information in response to researchers’ queries and I continue to explore how the findings of this research can be applied to improving finding aids as well as the learning curve archivists face when providing reference services in a new archival environment.

Jeannette Bastian
I have been an archival educator at Simmons since 1999 but spent the major part of my career working as a librarian and library/archives director in the United States Virgin Islands. My experiences in the Virgin Islands and the wider Caribbean inform my research interests which revolve around collective memory, post-colonialism, community archives and what I like to call ‘cultural archives’. These research interests are reflected in my publications – books and articles.

Currently I am engaged in two research and writing projects, both of which I hope will result in books. The first, tentatively entitled “Archives in Libraries; How Librarians and Archivists Bridge the Gaps and Find Common Ground in a time of Convergence” is being published by SAA. It explores the ways in which librarians and other information professionals responsible for archival components in their workplace can best understand, manage, supervise and work with archives and archivists. I hope to address problems of alignment, cooperation and convergence between archives and libraries residing in the same institution.

The second, provisionally entitled “Archives at the Margins; Cultures, communities and the making of records,” defines and develops the concept of a cultural archives, focusing on how diverse communities and under-documented societies express and record their collective heritage and memory and how archivists might capture, and preserve those expressions.

Jamal Batts
Jamal A. Batts is an M.A. Student in the Department of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton. He is also a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s African-American Studies Department. He has presented his scholarly and performance work on topics ranging from hip-hop, queer performance, fashion, visual culture, and the Black Arts Movement at numerous conferences and events. Most recently he was awarded the Peter C. Rollins Award for the “best presentation having to do with a popular culture issue” at the 2013 Southwest Texas Popular/American Culture Association Conference. Batts currently serves as an Editorial Assistant for the American Quarterly and as a Graduate Assistant in Cal State, Fullerton’s African-American Resource Center.

Brian Beaton
Brian Beaton is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the School of Information Sciences (SIS). He received his MA from New York University (NYU) and his PhD from the University of Toronto. Beaton’s current research and teaching interests include the history of information technology, science and technology studies (STS), archives, comparative media studies, software studies, and citizen science. With Dr. Alison Langmead, Beaton coordinates the DHRX, a digital humanities research network at the University of Pittsburgh that supports data-intensive projects in the humanities and social sciences. He also co-organizes a “Social Issues and Social Problems Working Group” for SIS faculty and graduate students interested in studying information needs and practices within the nonprofit sector. The bulk of Beaton’s current research attention concerns everyday data culture, with a focus on citizen science. He is conducting research on new and emerging modes of expert-lay collaboration such as web-based citizen science games. He is also conducting research on the unique data management and preservation challenges presented by citizen science activities. Beaton’s work on game-based citizen science formats has been recently awarded funding from the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and from the International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG) in Rochester. Beaton has also been recently working on a collaborative project concerned with the social and aesthetic implications of crowdsourcing with funding from the University of Pittsburgh’s Humanities Center.

Snowden Becker
I received a BFA in Printmaking from the Maryland Institute, College of Art in 1996, an MLIS from UCLA in 2001, and am now finishing my doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. My dissertation in progress explores the archival nature of evidence management in law enforcement, and the people, practices, and processes involved in these agencies’ creation and long-term retention of evidence in a wide variety of audiovisual formats.

My research interests more broadly are concerned with how audiovisual materials, especially amateur recordings, are integrated into our cultural heritage. I strongly believe that a 21st century archival education should prepare new members of the field to manage a historical record in which mechanical, electronic, digital and audiovisual components have become ubiquitous. As Program Manager for UCLA’s Moving Image Archive Studies MA degree, I now engage daily with the challenges of keeping a highly specialized curriculum rigorous, relevant, and rewarding for its students–as well as the need to demonstrate the value of archival studies to a broad range of stakeholders both on and off our campus.

Edward Benoit, III
I focus on non-traditional source materials in both historical research and archival concerns. For both my BA and MA in history, I analyzed non-textual materials, such as photographs and moving images, and extended this passion into my MLIS and Ph.D. programs through studying digital preservation and digital collections. My professional background echoes my academic life, as I worked with non-textual materials at the Milwaukee Art Museum, National Baseball Hall of Fame, and the Waukesha County Historical Society.

Prior to entering the doctoral program, my research covered a wide array of topics including: Milwaukee socialism, a case study of photography as primary sources, and representations of progress seen at the 1893 and 1933 World’s Fairs. The doctoral program, however, focused my research agenda. At the broadest level, I explore methods of increasing access and use of information with an emphasis on its discoverability. Within this area, I focus on digital collections with prior research on the impact of the DMCA, social tagging, document evaluation and the history of digital collections. My dissertation explores the possible integration of minimal processing and domain expert generated social tagging within digital archives.

Professional education requires the mastery of both theoretical and applied techniques; therefore, my teaching philosophy is built upon a constructivist and apprenticeship learning styles. Although no course can completely avoid instructive teaching, the best method provides a theoretical foundation while allowing students to expand their understanding through real world applications. Students gain both experience and the problem solving tools for future issues.

Joel Blanco-Rivera
I received my PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in April 2012. My research interests are archives and transitional justice in Latin America, freedom of information, and social memory. My dissertation is a case study of the work of the National Security Archive in transitional justice mechanisms in Latin America. My current research focuses on the archival implications of the emergence of Freedom of Information laws in Latin America. I am studying the factors that have caused this boom of transparency laws in the region, and the impact it has in national archives.

Erik Borglund
I work as a researcher and hold a position as associate professor (senior lecturer) in archives and information science (Ph.D in Computer & System Science) at the school of information at Mid Sweden University.

My research is carried out foremost within the CEDIF (Center för Digital Informations Förvaltning) and within the Risk, Crisis and Research Center RCR. I have 20 years experience as a police officer, and have been working in various departments within the Swedish police. My PhD was about design implications on information systems involved in the recordkeeping process.

My research interest is mainly in the area of recordkeeping informatics, crisis informatics and digital records. I have with my background as police officer studied the operational and tactical use of records both digital and analogue within the Swedish police. I am currently involved in two research projects, where I have a focus on records use and records creation during large police operations and during management of large-scale crisis where more than one actor is involved (e.g. the police, the fire brigade, the medical service etc.).

My research background is from a traditional Scandinavian Information systems research tradition, where technology is studied in the context where it is used. The Scandinavian Information systems research tradition has always focused on the intertwined mix of users and technology. I am also very interested in distance education, and the challenge of how to be able to teach the practical parts of the work of an archivist and a records manager carried out, in a distance educational setting.

Carol Brock
Carol Brock is a Certified Records Manager and the former Director of Information Assets for the US Government Accountability Office. She successfully spearheaded a NARA pilot project for simplified records scheduling and implemented an enterprise wide electronic recordkeeping system for which she earned the National Archivist’s Achievement Award. She has 23 years of Federal Information and Records Management experience as a contractor, consultant, and Federal employee. Carol is a founding member of the Federal Information and Records Management (FIRM) Council and is an active member of ARMA and AIIM. As a member of AIIM’s C30 Committee, she co-authored the EDM/ERM Integrated Functional Requirements.

Sarah Buchanan
Sarah is a doctoral student in Information Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests in archival studies include community archives as sources of identity and memory, archival arrangement and description of special collections, and interdisciplinary research in digital classics and the digital humanities. She is interested in researching provenance and preservation of archival materials, including archaeological artifacts. These interests are informed by her experiences as an archivist with the Neon Museum as well as with academic and museum collections. Currently she is a member of the Augmented Processing Table research team investigating arrangements of paper and digital materials. In teaching, she strives to promote a participatory environment that integrates students’ community engagement. Additionally she is active in the Society of American Archivists and helped launch the Bruin Archives Project (BAP) in 2008 as co-president of the SAA Student Chapter at UCLA. She received an M.L.I.S. from the University of California, Los Angeles and a B.A. with Distinction in Classical Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Matt Burton
I am a doctoral candidate at the School of Information at the University of Michigan. I have an interdisciplinary degree in Bioinformatics from Wesleyan University. After Wesleyan I worked as an infosec researcher for the MITRE corporation where I developed open XML standards for the information security community. My past research includes studies of scientific collaboration and the production of long-term data in ecological science. Currently, I study the digital humanities and new modalities of scholarly communication. Specifically, I am examining the sociotechnical dynamics of scholarly blogs using quantitative (text mining) and qualitative (grounded theory) techniques to construct and analyze an archive of digital humanist blogs. As my academic interests and professional background demonstrate, I believe in connecting ideas across a multitude of academic disciplines. My research leverages a range of methods and concepts enabling insights only possible through an interdisciplinary lens. This ethos complements the challenges and opportunities I’ve experienced in teaching the broad diversity of students at the University of Michigan’s School of Information.

Ellen-Rae Cachola
My academic training in Political Science, Cultural Anthropology, and currently, Information Studies, provides me with lenses to study power and cultural dynamics in information creation, management, and access.  My dissertation focuses on the archival practices of women’s social movements in the Asia-Pacific, U.S. and the Caribbean who seek to transform dominant discourses of security that over-prioritize wars, weaponry and expansion of military bases, through generating thinking and activity that encourages the practice of every day peace and security.  I am the Project Manager of the Archival Education Research Institute, a position that allows me to apply archival knowledge to organize conferences and research opportunities that support the development of archival faculty to address the technological and cultural needs of the 21st century. In addition, I am a Mentor and Program Coordinator for UCLA’s Graduate Research and Mentoring Program, teaching low-income, first generation, transfer, undergraduate college students on the value of social justice research in processes of self-determination and decolonization of knowledge. My career goal is to teach and practice archival knowledge that generates informational activity and social practices that addresses peace and security issues.

Itza Carbajal
I identify myself as a first generation Honduran-American and as a Latina with a passion for history, preservation, service, and written and spoken word. Both my academic education at the University of Texas at San Antonio and the education obtained through community and elders helped shape my historical framework and consciousness. I obtained my Bachelor of Arts in History and English with a concentration in Creative Writing in May of 2013. Through my experiences as a transnational daughter of immigrants, a displaced Hurricane Katrina survivor, and a woman of color, my research interests include the role of community archives, the use of archives as centers of power, archives and memory, the production of history, and ways that archives can transcend multiple disciplines.

Kathy Carbone
I am a first year doctoral student in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles; the performing arts librarian and institute archivist in the Division of Library and Information Resources and a faculty member in the School of Music at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). I hold a BFA in Dance, a MA in Dance and Music, and a MLIS. As a modern dancer and choreographer, I spent over 20 years collaborating with musicians and dancers through improvisation and set material in theater and gallery based live performance events. My  research investigates the ways artists conceptualize, interact with, and use the archive and archival records.  I am especially interested in examining (1) how archival records inform art-making processes and are used by artists in or as works of art, and, (2) if and how the re-use and dissemination of archival records in exhibitions, galleries, arts publications and/or performances informs archival practices and theory.

Michelle Caswell
Michelle Caswell is an Assistant Professor of Archival Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She received a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012.

Her book, “Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory and the Photographic Record in Cambodia,” will be published by the University of Wisconsin Press’s Critical Human Rights Series in 2014. Her research traces a collection of mug shots taken by the Khmer Rouge regime from their creation as bureaucratic documents that streamlined mass murder, to their inclusion in archives, digitization, and use by survivors and the family members of victims to spark narratives about the regime and memorialize the dead.

Her interests include archival theory; information ethics; social justice, human rights, pluralism, and archives; community archives as alternatives to mainstream institutions; the politics of accountability, ownership and access; the collective memory of violence; archival pedagogy; visual culture; and digital history.

She takes a social justice and pluralist approach to archival education, encouraging students to make connections between records creation, archival management, power and cultural diversity. She is also the co-founder of the South Asian American Digital Archive, an online repository that documents and provides access to the diverse stories of South Asian Americans.

Mary Choquette
Participation in AERI is critical to my success in the archival education and research field.  As a fulltime Lecturer I do not enjoy all the benefits of tenure track and tenured faculty, specifically in the area of research collaborations, at this point. By continuing memberships in professional organizations and societies, and being active in conferences and programs, I am able to engage in meaningful dialogue, but not on a regular basis, and not specifically focused on teaching, learning, and research, within an institution. I am committed to researching content as well as context in the classroom and through my own intellectual inquiry in order to enhance the educational experience of all involved in the process of educating human beings.

At AERI 2011 and 2012, I was engaged in constant discussion and conversation in these foci in a nurturing, non-threatening environment. The emphasis on sharing and learning from one another in an intense week long engagement had benefits beyond words for me, in particular, at this juncture in my career.  I continue to seek out this type of environment to help me locate where I am in career space and where I want to move on to in place. AERI provided an avenue of exploration for me at a critical point in my career and allowed me the opportunity to share advice on career development as a mentor.  I truly loved this engagement.  I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to experience this again, at the AERI 2013.

Anthony Cocciolo
Anthony Cocciolo is an Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science, where he teaches digital archives, moving image and sound archives, and digital libraries. His research interests are in the uses of emerging information and communications technology to promote human development, particularly building means to promote knowledge construction, civic/democratic engagement and social memory. His work considers how archives and libraries, as well as the interplay between digital and physical spaces, can act as environments or ecologies for promoting these goals.

Anthony completed his doctorate from the Communication, Computing Technology in Education program at Columbia University, and BS in Computer Science from the University of California, Riverside.   Prior to Pratt, he was the Head of Technology for the Gottesman Libraries at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he worked extensively on digital projects for the College’s archive and libraries.

Anthony has recently received recognition for his work, including the National Digital Stewardship Alliance Innovation Award for contributions to digital preservation and stewardship (2012), the ALISE/Pratt-Severn Faculty Innovation Award (2013), and the ALA Cutting-edge Library Service Award for German Traces NYC (2013).

Christopher Colwell
I am a Fellow of Records and Information Management Professionals Australasia (RIM Professionals Australasia) and an Associate of Chartered Secretaries Australia and the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (a Chartered Secretary). With 25 years experience in the information disciplines, for the last 16 years I have been responsible for implementing records and information management programs in Australian public sector agencies. Currently the Information and Governance Manager at the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, I am also a Casual Lecturer and PhD student in the Information and Knowledge Management School at the University of Technology, Sydney.

As the inaugural recipient of the RIM Professionals Australasia Research Grant I conducted research into the professional values of the recordkeeping industry in Australasia. This research guided a revision of the RIM Professionals Australasia Code of Professional Conduct and Statement of Ethical Practice.

The aims of my PhD research are to:

• explore the nature of the record and the perceptions of its properties in an organizational context;
• examine other disciplinary perceptions of the record object as information and evidence; and
• examine the implications of these perceptions for organizations and their performance, as well as for the records management profession with reference to models best practice and other disciplines.

Patricia (Patti) Condon
Patricia Condon is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College, Boston. She received her Master of Library and Information Science and Master of Arts in Anthropology from The University of Southern Mississippi. Patti has more than ten years experience working in university archives and academic, public, and special libraries.

Patti’s dissertation research investigates the disciplinary status of digital curation – the study asks whether digital curation exists as a set of practices or as a distinct emerging discipline. Patti’s other research interests include community archives, cultural heritage, and memory (with particular focus on the role of personal narratives and sense of place); preservation and access of library and archival materials; archival research trends and methodologies; and library and archive education.

As an archival educator, Patti encourages her students to develop and improve their research and practical skills; attain a more thorough understanding of, and respect for, the theory and history of their field; gain a holistic view of the information disciplines; and creatively explore new ideas. As a lifelong learner, Patti strives to do the same.

Paul Conway
Paul Conway is associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. He teaches courses on digitization, preservation, archives, and the ethics of new technologies. His research encompasses the digitization of cultural heritage resources, particularly photographic archives, the use of digitized resources by experts in a variety of humanities contexts, and the measurement of image and text quality in large-scale digitization programs. He has been a pioneer in charting the challenges and opportunities that digital information technologies present to preservation and archival science. He has extensive administrative experience in the cultural heritage sector and has made major contributions over the past 30 years to the literature on archival users and use, preservation management, and digital imaging technologies. He has held positions at the National Archives and Records Administration (1977-87; 1989-92), the Society of American Archivists (1988-89), Yale University (1992-2001), and Duke University (2001-06). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. In 2005, Conway received the American Library Association’s Paul Banks and Carolyn Harris Preservation Award for his contributions to the preservation field. He is a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists.

Richard Cox
Richard J. Cox is Professor in Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Information Sciences where he is responsible for the archives concentration in the Master’s in Library Science degree and the Ph.D. degree. He was a member of the Society of American Archivists Council from 1986 through 1989; Editor of the American Archivist from 1991 through 1995 and Editor of the Records & Information Management Report from 2001 through 2007. He has written extensively on archival and records management topics and has published sixteen books in this area, most recently Archival Anxiety and the Vocational Calling (2011), winning the Waldo Gifford Leland Award given by the Society of American Archivists in 1991, 2002, and 2005. He is presently researching on topics in archival history, valuing archives, and a theology of archival studies. Dr. Cox was elected a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists in 1989.  For detailed statements about his teaching and research, visit my home page.

Roderic Crooks
My writing currently focuses on Internet participation, locative media, data activism, and community archives. In general, I am interested in how narratives around novelty, inevitability, and universality mask the ways that technological systems encode idealized forms of social relations and require performances based on these orderings. I’m trying to work out some ethical issues in the context of geosocial media and recordkeeping, incorporating the multiple perspectives of users, service providers, and society. Before entering the doctoral program, I completed an MLIS at UCLA (2011) and an MFA at the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa (2005).

Morgan Currie
My research aims to historicize and theorize political and cultural concepts of ‘openness,’ with the goal of understanding how these ideas drive technical and policy changes related to access to government documents. Historically, pressure to make government information ‘open’ has both impacted and been influenced by technological transmission; that is, access to government documents and archives was first provided by paper publication from centralized repositories, then e-government websites, and now also open databases. My research also looks at information literacy, citizen participation, and the efforts of citizen-gathered data and document leaks to contest opacity in government documentation practices, particularly post 9-11. This work falls in the areas of documentation and archival studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS); methodologically it employs historical analysis and empirical case studies, focusing primarily on documents and data related to climate change and city planning.

This study follows from research I’ve conducted over the past five years on how concepts of openness influence archives, legal licenses, and communities of practice. I’ve published on library archival practices that use collaborative open repositories to guarantee the interoperability, longevity, and accessibility of their increasingly digital holdings. More recently I’ve published on Wikipedia, open source software, and on open government data and citizen contestation of public documents. I hope to continue this work both as a lecturer and researcher in an academic setting and with the aim of affecting policy-making and law related to government documentation practices and citizen involvement in city planning.

Morgan Daniels
I am a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan’s School of Information.  My research focuses on people’s experiences of information reuse, a theme that I have explored in several contexts.  Within traditional archives, I have looked at the impact of college and university archives on student users and worked on the development of tools for user-based assessment of archives (both with the Archival Metrics project).  More recently my focus has shifted to look specifically at the reuse of research data.  My work in this area includes an interview and observation-based study of scientists’ data management and reuse practices and an analysis of staff approaches to change in data over time at three repositories.

Combining my experience investigating data reuse and a background gained through the completion of a museum studies certificate, I am conducting my dissertation work on the topic of research use of museum materials, including artifacts, their representations, and research data collections held by museums.  My comparative case study addresses the various kinds of data held by two museums and the ways in which researchers in several fields use those data to develop new knowledge.  It also explores the implications of museum data sources for developing data sharing infrastructure.  At AERI, I will present material based on my dissertation work.  I look forward to receiving feedback on this work from the AERI community.

Christine D’Arpa
I am completing my dissertation in my fifth year of the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where I am an Information in Society Fellow funded by a grant from the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program at the Institute for Museum and Library Services. My dissertation research examines the information service functions of the U.S. Department of Agriculture between 1862 and 1889. The work has me down in the weeds of the Department’s records at NARA and the National Agricultural Library and thinking about the resilience of the historical record and what counts as historical evidence.

I worked as a graduate assistant in UIUC University Archives for four years doing oral history, reference, and processing the records of the American Library Association. I expect to continue my work with oral history, which preserves unique stories and voices and can help validate historically silent or marginalized voices. The sense of agency that comes with that validation is a first step toward civic participation and engagement.

My research interests seek to understand how archives, libraries, and other public information institutions can help reinvigorate public commitment to civic education and engagement, and participation in public policy development. My teaching builds on the knowledge and experience that students bring to the class and challenges them to engage and critically examine new ideas and perspectives. I firmly believe archives and LIS education need to focus on developing leaders with vision and skills to be advocates who are actively engaged in public policy development.

Devan Ray Donaldson
I am a Doctoral Candidate in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. I earned a MS in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BA in History from the College of William and Mary in Virginia. During my junior year at William and Mary, I studied abroad at Oxford University, Hertford College. I have been a Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholar since 2002, a Horace H. Rackham Merit Fellow since 2008 and an Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Honor Society Member since 2012.

My research objective is to empirically measure end-user trust. Toward this end, I aim to: 1) understand how to build trust between end-users and organizations responsible for providing reliable access to preserved content in a digital environment, 2) conduct research on preservation repositories from the perspective of the end-user, and 3) study the experience of end-users in making credibility (e.g., trustworthiness and expertise) assessments of digital content housed in preservation repositories.

My scholarship philosophy is simple. I believe scholarship should be based upon empiricism. As a researcher, I want to employ a variety of research methods (qualitative – e.g., semi-structured interviews, observation, etc. and quantitative – e.g., surveys, randomized experiments, etc.) to better understand archival issues in the digital environment.

Lorrie Dong
I am a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas at Austin.  My dissertation research focuses on the roles of medical records over time.  I am studying how official records from a state mental institution in Virginia were involved in social relationships within the hospital and across broader communities (e.g., professional, local) from the late 19th century, as active records, to the present, as archival materials. The intent is to better understand how these records were and continue to be part of dynamic power structures and, consequently, to consider the place of medical records within several cultural heritage and archival paradigms.

Additional information on my research and teaching can be found on my website.

Jonathan Dorey
Jonathan Dorey is a Ph.D. candidate at the McGill University School of Information Studies in Montréal, Canada. His primary fields of study are archival literacy, archives users, and access to archives. He is also interested in the relationship between language and information and the development of bilingual and multilingual taxonomies. Jonathan is currently working as a lecturer, teaching a master’s level research methods course, and research assistant, working on bilingual taxonomy development for image retrieval. Previously, Jonathan was part of the Scoping the Published Archival Research Corpus (SPARC) research project and of a joint McGill University and Université de Sherbrooke collaborative project to conceptualize the notion of comfort for enthusiast cyclists through a discourse analysis of magazine articles and online forum posts, and in-depth interviews with cyclists.

Jonathan holds an MLIS from McGill University (2010), a graduate certificate in website and software localization from Université de Montréal (2008) and a bachelor’s degree in translation and East-Asian studies from Université de Montréal (2002). He is also a certified translator since 2005. He is also a certified translator since 2005. Jonathan has worked at BG Communications and Harris Interactive in Montréal as a translator, at Google Montréal as a local bilingual taxonomy specialist and at CEDROM-SNi as a librarian. He is currently a lecturer and research assistant at the McGill University School of Information Studies.

Maria Esteva
Maria Esteva is a Research Associate at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Esteva holds a B.S. from the School of Medicine, University of Buenos Aires, and an M.Sc. in Information Studies, a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Preservation Administration and a Ph.D. in Information Science, all from the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. Since 2008 she has been involved in data management and archival informatics projects at TACC, including “A Visual Analytic Framework for Large-scale Electronic Records Collections.”

Joanne Evans
I am a Lecturer in the Faculty of IT at Monash University involved in teaching the archives and records units of our Bachelor, Grad Diploma and Masters courses, as well as other units in the information systems and information management areas. My research relates to the design and development of archival information systems, with particular emphasis on recordkeeping metadata, interoperability and sustainability. I am particularly interested in exploring the requirements for archival systems in community environments using inclusive systems and research design approaches. With digital and networked information technologies throwing down many challenges for archival and recordkeeping endeavours, in both my teaching and my research I like to explore how they may help us develop better archival and recordkeeping infrastructures, in turn enriching our understanding of records, archives and archivists in society.

Rebecca Frank
I am a first year doctoral student at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. I have a B.A. in Organizational Studies and an M.S. in Information specializing in Preservation of Information, both from the University of Michigan. My current research interests include risk management and disaster response and recovery planning for digital repositories and cultural heritage institutions, audit and certification processes for trustworthy digital repositories, and the development and implementation of standards for digital repositories.

Patricia Galloway
I earned a BA in French from Millsaps College (1966) and MA (1968) and PhD in Comparative Literature from UNC-CH (1973). I worked as a medieval archaeologist in Europe in the 1970s and as a digital humanist in the Computer Unit of Westfield College, University of London, in 1977-78. Returning to the US in 1979, I worked at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History until 2000, where I was an editor, historian, museum exhibit developer, IT manager, and electronic records program director. I am the author of an extensive literature in ethnohistory and colonial history, including especially Choctaw Genesis 1500-1700 (1995) and Practicing Ethnohistory (2006). I earned a second UNC-CH PhD in Anthropology in 2004.

I joined the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin in fall of 2000, charged with developing a suite of courses to prepare students to become digital archivists. In the past 13 years I have taught almost 500 Master’s students in digital archives classes and I currently chair eight PhD committees. I also teach archival appraisal and a course on historical museums in the UT Museum Studies portfolio program.

My research interests include understanding the institutionalization of digital repositories, archival theory, preservation of intangible cultural heritage, and the analysis of digital records corpora. Recently my interests as a historian have led me to begin investigating the generation of documentation by the community of practice that spans the computer industry, computer publications, and computer users, with a view to understanding archival documentation requirements to support historical studies in this field.

Patricia Garcia
I am a PhD student in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. I received a B.A. in English literature from St. Edward’s University in 2005 and an M.A. in English literature with a concentration on Mexican-American literature from the University of Texas, Austin in 2007.

My main research interest deals with how archival reference services can be improved to meet the needs of K-12 educators. More generally, I am interested in the use of primary sources in K-12 classroom settings. Having worked as a second grade bilingual teacher in Texas, my main research interest rests at the intersection of information studies and education.

Currently, I am in the process of undertaking an ethnographic study of teachers who are experimenting with integrating primary materials into standards-based lessons at the UCLA Lab School.

Anne Gilliland
Anne Gilliland’s research in archival informatics concentrates on points where issues relating to recordkeeping, accountability, memory and social justice intersect with technology within and across organizational, national, community and disciplinary domains. At a broader level, her work examines how this area can be instrumental in building and furthering archival research, theory, professional practice and education as well as the archival role as it is perceived and is instrumental in society. It also seeks to extend the scope of archival informatics to encompass investigations of the impacts of and upon diverse cultural and community epistemologies and practices of technologically, bureaucratically and juridically-centred approaches to archiving in digital and glocal environments. Her monograph, Conceptualizing Twenty-first Century Archives, will be published by the Society of American Archivists in summer 2013. She is currently completing another monograph, Telling Stories About Stories: Digital Archives Across Time, Space, Cultures and Communities, that applies metadata archaeology, discourse analysis, ethnography and autoethnography to a diverse set of case studies, and that will be published by Litwin Press. During her sabbatical this academic year, she will be based at the University of Zadar in Croatia and will be conducting research for a monograph on records, recordkeeping and memory in the states of the former Yugoslavia. She, Andrew Lau and Sue McKemmish are the editors of Research in the Archival Multiverse, a collection of essays on archival research methods and design by archival scholars, due to be completed in December 2013 and published as part of the Social Informatics Monograph Series, Monash University Press. Professor Gilliland has directed the Archival Studies specialization at UCLA since 1995. She is the director and principal investigator for AERI.

Nestor Gonzalez
My full name is Nestor Joel Gonzalez Ramirez. I am a first generation college student. Currently pursuing a Bachelors of Science in Hospitality Management and Bachelors of Arts in Gender, Ethnic and Multi-Cultural studies. I am entering my final undergraduate year at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. My future academic goal is to pursue a doctoral program on food justice, security, and archival program on food cultivation. I enjoy all forms of music, that range from the 1950s to the underground artists, have a collection of vinyl records that range from 80s flashback to various genres of electronic dance music. Furthermore, I enjoy collecting various books from topics that range from civil rights, cooking, wine, and fiction. On my spare time I like to build model kits, pencil illustrations, and paint. Overall I am an outgoing, artistic, and charismatic person who just keeps seeking knowledge from various aspects of education.

Jane Gruning
I am a second year doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin School of Information. My research interests are in the area of digital archives and the preservation of digital objects. I am interested in how human experiences of digital objects as virtual and/or physical affect how we try (or don’t try) to keep those objects for the long term. I approach these topics from the perspective of discourse, that is, how our talk about digital objects reflects our conceptions of those objects. An additional and related interest of mine is the study of digital virtual consumption (sometimes called real-money trade). This is the phenomenon of the purchase of virtual objects, usually within online games.

Currently I am the Graduate Research Assistant for an NSF-funded study (PI, Dr. Lecia Barker) concerning faculty adoption of new teaching practices in STEM disciplines (primarily Computer Science). I hope that I will be able to apply the knowledge of teaching approaches that I gain during this project to the work of training archival students in technical skills that are becoming increasingly essential for digital archivists.

Carolyn Hank
I am an Assistant Professor at the School of Information Sciences (SIS) at the University of Tennessee (UTK). I received my Ph.D. from the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). My dissertation research looked at scholars who blog, and how blog characteristics and blogger behaviors, preferences, and perceptions impact digital preservation. My overall research agenda concerns scholars’ informal digital content creation, communication and management practices in our contemporary, co-produced, social networked information environment. Currently, I’m PI on an OCLC/ALISE grant funded study, “The Biblioblogosphere: A Comparison of Communication and Preservation Perceptions and Practices between Blogging LIS Scholar-Practitioners and LIS Scholar-Researchers.” I’m also PI on another ALISE-funded study looking at information and library science faculty and student interactions via Facebook. I serve as the North American academic expert on BlogForever, a co-funded European Commission project on blog preservation. Previously, I was project manager of DigCCurr I (2007-2009) and program manager for the UNC Digital Curation/Institutional Repository Committee (2005-2008) and Carolina Digital Repository (2008-2009). Prior to joining UTK-SIS, I was an Assistant Professor at the School of Information Studies at McGill University (2010-2012). I teach in the areas of digital curation, human information interactions, and research methods. I see teaching and learning as inherently social and strive to encourage individual interests in a dynamic, interactive climate of many voices and diverse perspectives. At SIS-UTK, I’ll be developing an online archival studies program, with a focus on digital archiving practices and principles.

Twanna Hodge
My major is Humanities with minors in communication and psychology. A Bachelor of Arts degree in humanities introduced me to a broad perspective on human behavior thought, and values through selected topics across the arts and humanities. I was able to develop skills in communication, writing, problem-solving and critical thinking. My minor in communication taught me basic communication skills, like how to produce and distribute messages, across digital, written, and visual platforms. My minor in psychology had lead to me understand the ways in which individuals, groups, organizations, institutions, nations and cultures behave. My current university affiliation is the University of Washington at Seattle. My research interests are in the areas of archiving, social impacts of and use for archives and information, and cultural archives in institutions of higher education.

Dalena Hunter
Dalena Hunter is a 3rd year PhD Student at UCLA.

Christian Kelleher
Christian Kelleher is the archivist and assistant head librarian at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, the University of Texas at Austin, where he manages the rare books and manuscripts division. He is also the project manager for the University of Texas Libraries’ Human Rights Documentation Initiative (HRDI). At the Benson Collection Mr. Kelleher has worked with archival projects including the Gloria Anzaldúa papers, the Magda Portal papers, the archive of radio program Latino USA, the online archive of the Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional de Guatemala, and through HRDI the Genocide Archive of Rwanda, among many others. Before joining the Benson Collection he was an archivist and records manager with History Associates Incorporated in Rockville, Maryland where he worked with a number of organizations in the Washington, DC area, including the Organization of American States, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the National Park Service, and the National Geographic Channel. Mr. Kelleher holds a Master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin Graduate School of Library and Information Science with a specialization in Archival Enterprise, and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Journalism. He is a Certified Archivist from the Academy of Certified Archivists.

Jihyun Kim
Jihyun Kim is Assistant Professor in the Department of Library and Information Science at Ewha Womans University in South Korea. She holds a MSI (2002) and a PhD (2008) from the University of Michigan School of Information, and a BA (1998) and a MA (2000) in Library and Information Science from Ewha Womans University. Her doctoral dissertation focused on university faculty members’ self-archiving practices, and their motivations and concerns about making research works openly accessible via the Internet. She is currently interested in data management and preservation, and in researchers’ data practices. Her ongoing research involves examining how researchers in various disciplines create, collect, describe, preserve, and share data, and incorporates the resulting knowledge of data practices into the development of data curation services in South Korea. She also teaches both undergraduate and graduate students on Introduction to Archives and Records Management, Archival Reference Services, and Electronic Records Management.

Sarah Kim
I am a doctoral student at the School of Information, the University of Texas at Austin. My research interests include digital archives, preservation and curation of digital heritage, personal information management and digital archiving, and technology and practices in everyday life.  I hold M.S. in Information Studies (Archives and Records Management) and B.A. in History and Art History.

James King
I am a first-year doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Sciences. I hold a BA from Samford University, an MA in English from Boston College, and an MLIS from the University of Alabama.  Prior to beginning the doctoral program, I worked as an Admissions Coordinator at North Bennet Street School and completed archives coursework at Simmons College.

I am interested in the intersection of archives and questions of cultural memory and conflict, particularly in the role archives play in communities fractured by war and other historical traumas.  My recent research addresses the Belfast Project oral history subpoenas and their potential impact on archival preservation.

My research and teaching are both informed by an interdisciplinary approach that draws from my background in the humanities. I practice a cultural materialist approach that seeks to understand the archive’s role in broader cultural contexts and movements.

Adam Kriesberg
I am a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan School of Information. During my time at Michigan, I have worked as a Graduate Student Research Assistant on the Archival Metrics and Dissemination Information Packages for Information Reuse (DIPIR) projects. My research interests focus on access to digital archival and cultural materials. More specifically, my current work seeks to examine the effects of  commercial digitization on access to archival records. When public archival institutions engage in partnerships that allow private organizations to charge for access to digital records, this represents a change in the access paradigm that physical archives have operated in for years. My research explores this space, using a mixed-methods approach to analyze the landscape of privatization, enclosure, design, and access for digital archives.

My commitment to archival scholarship comes from a belief that our field must continue advocating for public access to archival materials as they are digitized. The affordances of technology should not obscure the need for continued critical inquiry into the role of digital records in the information landscape. As a scholar, I aspire to be a strong supporter of public access to information of all types, and to emphasize this idea in my research and teaching.  Preservation of the cultural record and the provision of access to members of the public are continued drivers of my work, and a source of inspiration as I explore access systems and the impact of commercial partnerships with public archival institutions.

Alison Langmead
I have made a concerted effort in my professional career to combine my enthusiasm for academic work with an equally strong desire to use my theoretical research in daily practice. While working towards by PhD in art history and my MLIS, for example, I held a variety of positions in a number of library-museum-archives settings, including a full- time post as the archivist/records and information manager in a small business. I currently hold a joint faculty appointment at the University of Pittsburgh that again combines the practical and the theoretical. In my research work, I am attempting to tease out the nature of the relationship between the practice of active information management and the archival profession, both as a historical narrative and as a complex, changing process in contemporary America. My current work is now connecting this research up with the early history of computing and digital information practices.

In my teaching, I believe that a successful graduate education in the field of archives and records/information management must satisfy two basic requirements. First, as befits any professional education, our students must become acquainted with a set of basic practical skills. Second, our students need to acquire a sophisticated understanding of the theoretical and historical underpinnings that support these practical proficiencies. Without a solid awareness of the reasons why current practice is the way that it is, our students will be hard-pressed to make sense of future changes, and they will also find it more difficult to become the proactive agents of change that we need them to be in order to propel these professions forward in an increasingly information-based economy.

Christopher (Cal) Lee
Christopher (Cal) Lee is Associate Professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He teaches courses on archival administration; records management; digital curation; understanding information technology for managing digital collections; and acquiring information from digital storage media.  He is a lead organizer and instructor for the DigCCurr Professional Institute, and he teaches professional workshops on the application of digital forensics methods and principles to digital acquisitions.

Cal’s primary area of research is the curation of digital collections. He is particularly interested in the professionalization of this work and the diffusion of existing tools and methods into professional practice. Cal developed “A Framework for Contextual Information in Digital Collections,” and edited and provided several chapters to I, Digital: Personal Collections in the Digital Era published by the Society of American Archivists.

Cal is Principal Investigator of BitCurator, which is developing and disseminating open-source digital forensics tools for use by archivists and librarians. He was also Principal Investigator of the Digital Acquisition Learning Laboratory (DALL) project, which incorporated digital forensics tools and methods into digital curation education. Cal has served as Co-PI on several projects focused on preparing professionals for digital curation: Preserving Access to Our Digital Future: Building an International Digital Curation Curriculum (DigCCurr), DigCCurr II: Extending an International Digital Curation Curriculum to Doctoral Students and Practitioners; Educating Stewards of Public Information for the 21st Century (ESOPI-21), Educating Stewards of the Public Information Infrastructure (ESOPI2), and Closing the Digital Curation Gap (CDCG).

Jamie A. Lee
Through what started in 1991 as a career in film/TV, I have found that my passions are steeped in social change. With technological shifts towards digital, I have discovered creative and critical ways to connect my growing technological and storytelling expertise to efforts to make spaces for non-dominant voices to be heard.

In 2008, when I started an oral history archive and Arizona’s first LGBTQ archive, I had no idea about the journey ahead of me. I had never established an archive or even worked in one, so I returned to academia to ensure that I learned how to do it right and for the right reasons. I was invited to participate in the Knowledge River Scholar’s Program through which I co-directed the Stories of Arizona’s Tribal Libraries oral history project that has collected the histories Arizona tribal nations and their efforts to start tribal libraries. Through this work pushing at the tentative boundaries between academia and community, I discovered my interest in teaching about archives to create spaces for more voices and perspectives to be collected and preserved. This urgency moved me to pursue a Doctorate.

Today, I am interested in the theoretical and practical approaches to developing archives for and with the communities they are to represent.  With a focus on queer, feminist, indigenous, and assemblage theories, I am currently developing a qualitative research methods curriculum as well as queer/ed archival methodologies to shift thinking about archives as only static pillars of evidence to spaces of playful re/membering.

Noah Lenstra
In my research and teaching, I attempt to connect research and practice into praxis. I am committed to scholarship that grows out of, and responds to, real world concerns of individuals in their day-to-day lives. I have been interested in archives since high school, and I am extremely excited about research opportunities in archival studies.  My future plans include incorporating archival studies into an interdisciplinary research program will foreground the diverse ways in which individuals and groups use archival documents, including records, in the present. I am also interested in how and why individuals choose to participate within archival endeavors, based on cultural conceptions of appropriate forms, or genres, of remembering and performing/representing the past in the present.

I have been blessed to take advantage of many opportunities at the University of Illinois that have allowed me to develop and extend my interests. In addition to work experiences at the Sousa Archives & Center for American Music and the Champaign County Historical Archives, I co-led with faculty from African-American Studies a multi-year action research project focusing on utilizing digital technologies to enhance public interfaces with documentation, including records, of African-American experiences in the local area. Following my interdisciplinary trajectory, I built on local experiences in Spring 2012 and Spring 2013 to develop a workshop on Digital Local & Family History that I presented to public librarians, genealogists, local historians, and students in the Midwest.

Amalia Skarlatou Levi
I am a third year Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies, where I also received a joint Master’s degree (MA in History and MLS). I also hold an M.A. in Museum Studies. My research encompasses history, information studies, and memory studies. I am interested in augmenting historical scholarship on diasporas and minorities through enhanced contextualization and linking of dispersed collections, both in institutions and in the hands (and memory) of individuals. I am currently exploring how Linked Open Data can be applied towards this end. I am also interested in how “memory institutions” inform our understanding of our identity and in how memory and identity are articulated and reified in archives, particularly online ones.

Before starting my studies at Maryland, I have worked in Jewish museums, developing exhibits, and conducting archival research.

I participated in AERI for the first time in 2012 and I loved the experience of being among a small, intimate, and helpful community of individuals who have the same interests, and concerns like me.

My research deals with the implications of archiving, exhibiting, (re)presenting diverse cultures, and to this end, I explore:
– Online platforms that allow diverse voices into the archives,
– Social media as primary sources and digital objects
– Collaboration and participation in the production of history,
– Greater interaction among archivists, curators, users, and records (documents, objects, oral testimonies),
– Linking of resources
– Semantic web and culturally sensitive applications

Eleanor Mattern
Eleanor “Nora” Mattern is a doctoral student in Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Nora’s research interests are in the areas of government records, policy, and ethics. Her work explores issues surrounding the ownership of information and cultural materials. At the University of Pittsburgh, Nora has taught a course in Museum Archives and has co-taught, with Dr. Richard Cox, courses in Library and Archival Preservation, Archival Appraisal, and Archival Advocacy, Access, and Ethics . Her work has been published in the International Journal of Cultural Property and Library and Archival Security. Nora holds a BA from Lehigh University and a MA in Museum Studies from Syracuse University.

Lindsay Mattock
I am currently in my third year of doctoral studies at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Sciences. Prior to my doctoral studies, I also received a MLIS with a focus in Archives, Preservation and Records Management and a MA in Film Studies with a related area in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh. My professional experience as a video-technician and personal interest in filmmaking and photography have shaped my academic interest in the preservation of visual media, both analog and digital, and the recordkeeping practices of media creators.

My proposed dissertation research has developed from my work with several local institutions in their attempts to preserve and provide continued access to collections of visual media. I believe that community building between creators and custodians is a vital step in advocating for the continued preservation of media collections. My dissertation research seeks to build on the growing body of community archives literature looking specifically at non-profit media centers which support a range of activities related to media production. Through investigating the development of archival practices at these non-profit organizations and exploring how communities of records creators produce, maintain, and provide continue access to their media products, I seek to inform archival practices related to the management of media collections.

Jocelyn Monahan
After graduating with a B.A. in Literature and Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh, I went on to earn a M.S.I.S. at the University of Texas at Austin. My coursework and Master’s project focused on digital archiving and online communities. I am now a first-year doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh’s English department, specializing in Composition and Rhetoric. My academic interests are currently grounded in the Digital Humanities, combining my background in critical theory and literary criticism with my technical familiarity with creating and using digital media. My current research interests include geospatial representations of traditional data, identity performance in online spaces, and community learning.

Angela P. Murillo
I am a third-year doctoral student in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Since beginning my doctoral studies, I have been a DigCCurr Doctoral Fellow and am currently the Project Manager. I received my MLIS from the University of Iowa in May 2010, where I was an IMLS Digital Libraries Research Fellow. During my masters program I also worked in Digital Library Services and Special Collections and University Archives. My bachelor’s degrees are in Geosciences, English, and Spanish.

Throughout my doctoral program, I have also had the opportunity to gain valuable experience in teaching and creating curriculum. I have co-taught and been the teaching assist for several courses in the archival area including: Digital Preservation and Access, Archival Appraisal, and Information Technology for Managing Digital Collections.

My fellowship work and my teaching continue to reinforce my belief in the importance of archival education and research.  My research is broadly focused on digital curation in the sciences.  Specifically, I am interested in a variety of topics including scientific data management, scientific data reuse and sharing, scientific data repositories, and endangered scientific data.  I prefer to investigate these topics through an international lens. My past research included how scientists are using social media to gain access to information.  Some of my current research includes digital curation education, reuse and sharing of scientific data, scientific metadata, and endangered scientific data or data at risk.

Frances Nichols
Miss Nichols is a newcomer to the field of Archival Studies.  She obtained two undergraduate degrees from the University of Tennessee in History and Classical Civilization, and a Masters in history from the University of Kentucky.  Working in the special collections at the University of Kentucky changed her direction of study.  Miss Nichols is currently a first year PhD student at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee,  with a focus on digitization, digital collections and user access. She particularly  interested in investigating national and international collaborations that are working to better construct and maintain archives to serve scholars in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) fields.  Her goal is to gain valuable practice and research experience in the field at a national archive for several years, to achieve a solid understanding and first-hand experience in the real world opportunities and challenges of contemporary digital archives, and then to return to the world of academe to teach and prepare future generations of digital archivists.

Jinfang Niu
I am an assistant professor at the School of Information, University of South Florida, teaching archives and records management, digital curation and web archiving. My current research focuses on the organization, description and preservation of electronic records. I received my PhD degree in information science from University of Michigan. Prior to that, I was an academic librarian and participated in the digitization, metadata scheme development, cataloging and usability study of several digital library projects.

Meung-Hoan Noh
Meung-Hoan Noh studied European contemporary history at the university of Münster of Germany during 1983-88, and acquired Master degree (1988). He promoted to the Ph.D. course at the University of Essen of Germany and acquired Ph.D. degree (1991). Since 1992 he has been teaching history at the Department of History of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies of Seoul Korea. Since 2001 he has been also teaching history and theories of archival management  in the Department of Information and Archival Studies (Graduate School Program) of HUFS. He was a visiting scholar of Georgetown University of USA (Center for German and European Studies) in the period of 2003-2005. He participated in the training programs of NARA (modern archives institute) of USA and of Marburg Archivschule of Germany for the archivists in the year 2008. He published many articles and several books on European and German and Korean contemporary history, and archival theories and history. He is now the director of the World folklore Museum and historical Archives of HUFS. He works for ICA-SAE as a member of the Steering Committee.

Benedicta Obodoruku
I hope it is acceptable to point out some of my accomplishments as I answer this question. There are several things that I feel will make me stand out from other applicants. In recognition of the quality of my academic work at SUNY Oneonta, I was given a scholarship for academic achievement. I have consistently demonstrated a very strong work ethic (currently a Ph.D. student in Information Science at Long Island University). When I came to America from Nigeria – for the purpose of going to school, I became very focused on graduating as quickly as possible. My willingness and ability to work so hard allowed me to graduate with my Bachelors Degree in just two years. I demonstrated the same ability and work ethic in graduate school as I did a very time consuming internship at the United Nations as a graduate student, the equivalent of a half time job on average. Having written various chapter in regards to refugees at the UN. This gave me a global view as well as a vignette to examine the convoluted issues in regards to the influx of refugees globally especial in Tanzanian and to examine the dilemma which they go through in refugee camps. Especially women and children. Many of these women and children have been raped and they experienced – and are still experiencing many human rights abuses that are preventable.  If I am given the opportunity to participant in AERI conference I believe I will bring my international experience been a female from Nigeria and a doctoral student researching for three years on the issues of refugees- to the conference as well as share the pain refugees go through in their daily lives (such as: the inadequacy  of security, inadequate food as well as the inadequate of information). My work ethic makes me an excellent candidate for this conference and also been a female. I think women should be given the opportunity to share their research in order to voice their views. This I find to be vital, in the ubiquitous age of information age.

Andrew Ojeda
Andrew Ojeda is a M.A. candidate in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. Andrew’s research interests center on the topic of black being in the present moment. Research subjects related to this issue that he focuses on include racial performativity, identity, and colorism. Prior to pursuing his M.A., Andrew received his B.A. in American Studies at the College of William and Mary. Throughout his time at William and Mary he participated in the Lemon Project, a research initiative funded by the College. The project aims at examining William and Mary’s involvement with slavery, Jim Crow, and how that history affects the College’s present day relationship with African-Americans in the Hampton Roads Metropolitan area. Also while at William and Mary, Andrew wrote an honors thesis entitled “Yeah, My Mom is Milk and My Dad is Granola:” The Depiction of Interracial Relationships and Racial Hybridity in U.S. Visual Culture. Essentially, the thesis concentrated on both interracial romance and mixed-race individuals in American society.

Gillian Oliver
I currently teach and conduct research in records and archives at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. My most recent professional experience prior  to this was as part of the foundation team established to initiate digital archiving capability at New Zealand’s national archives. I have extensive experience in online distance education and am particularly interested in the challenges of developing and building innovative and vibrant professional communities in a small country context.

My PhD is from Monash University, and this doctoral study was the catalyst for my ongoing research agenda in organizational culture and information culture. I am editor of the New Zealand archivists’ professional journal, Archifacts, and an editor-in-chief of Archival Science.

Jennifer O’Neal
Jennifer O’Neal, member of The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in Oregon, is the University Historian and Archivist at the University of Oregon Libraries Special Collections and University Archives, where she manages the University Archives collections, oversees the department’s instruction program, and serves as an advisor on tribal community projects. She teaches courses in research and writing using primary sources, and collaborates extensively with faculty using archive collections in their instruction. She also serves as a guest lecturer at the San Jose State University, School of Library and Information Science, Circle of Learning program. In August 2012, she served as an instructor for the Oregon Tribal Archives Institute at Oregon State University. She is a Ph.D. Student in History at Georgetown University.

Previously, from 2008-2012, she served as the Head Archivist for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, where she oversaw the daily operations and management of the repository. She has held prior positions at the U.S. Department of State, Princeton University, University of Arizona, and Utah State University. She currently serves as the chair of the Society of American Archivists Native American Archives Roundtable and the co-chair of the Cultural Heritage Working Group. In 2006 she participated in drafting the best practices for the respectful care and use of Native American archival materials, which produced the ”Protocols for Native American Archival Materials.”  She currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums.  Jennifer earned a Masters in Library Science from the University of Arizona, as part of the Knowledge River program, and a Masters in History from Utah State University.

Her research is dedicated to the intersections between social, cultural, and historical contexts in which archives exist for marginalized or underrepresented communities. She has specifically focused on social justice regarding cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and intellectual property rights affecting indigenous archives and the collaborations between tribal and non-tribal repositories. She is currently spearheading a project to reconvene the original drafters of the “Protocols” to update and reassess the guidelines to include case studies and information regarding the United Nations Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Furthermore, she is dedicated to ensuring these issues are examined in archival theory and constructs, thus altering the ways in which the pedagogy contributes to cultural relevance and sensitivity.

Richard Pearce-Moses
My archival career spans thirty years, and includes work with historic and fine art photography, state and local government records, regional history, and Native American collections. Recently, my work has focused on electronic records and digital publications.

I have worked in academic libraries, government agencies, a museum, and a state historical organization.  In June 2010, I became the first Director of the new Master of Archival Studies program at Clayton State University.  The program is fully online, and uses synchronous lectures to prepare graduates to work as digital archivists.  I am responsible for developing the curriculum, development of courses, and assisting faculty develop courses and learn effective techniques for engaged, online learning. Currently I teach Principles and Practices, Archives and Technology, Archives and the Web, Appraisal, and Law and Ethics.  I also supervise directed research and internships.

I am a Fellow of the Society, a Certified Archivist, and past president of the Society of American Archivists. I was the principal author of A Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology.

My research interests include questions about the knowledge and skills digital archivists need, which I explored at the New Skills for a Digital Era colloquium. I am also interested in automated tools to support digital curation and preservation, which I explored in the LC/NDIIPP-funded PeDALS project while at the Arizona State Library and Archives.

Katie Pierce Meyer
I am a doctoral student in the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. Through my work, I intend to contribute to an active discussion between professionals in libraries, archives and museums and the architectural community to create collaborative relationships that can result in the sustainability of records that document the built environment. I bring my practice as an archivist and training as an architectural historian to my research focus on the socio-technical environment in which architectural records are created. My primary concern is a disconnection between contemporary practices in architecture, engineering, and construction and the ability of cultural institutions to preserve the industry’s records. I believe that actively working with the community that generates records is crucial to the long-term preservation of records.

I received a BA in Philosophy from Southwestern University in 2002 and completed a MS in Information Studies at the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin (UT) in 2007. After receiving my MA in Architectural History from the UT School of Architecture, I returned to the School of Information as an IMLS Preservation Fellow. Throughout my graduate education, I have held a project architvist position at the Alexander Architectural Archives, where I am currently processing the Charles W. Moore archives.

Alex Poole
A third-year doctoral student at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Alex Poole hails from Connecticut and was graduated from the Loomis Chaffee School (cum laude), Williams College (Highest Honors, History), Brown University (MA, History), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (MSLS, Beta Phi Mu). Currently Poole works under the aegis of the IMLS-funded DigCCurr II project.  Overall, DigCCurr II “seeks to develop an international, doctoral-level curriculum and educational network in the management and preservation of digital materials across their life cycle.”  DigCCurr II prepares such educators.  In line with DigCCurr II’s mission, Poole’s research interests pivot around digital curation, particularly of data in the humanities and social sciences.

Ricardo Punzalan
I am an assistant professor of archives at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies. I hold a Ph.D. in Information from the University of Michigan’s School of Information. In addition to an MLIS from the University of the Philippines, I completed two certificates of graduate studies at Michigan, one in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) and another in Museum Studies. My dissertation project examined virtual reunification as a strategy to provide integrated access to dispersed ethnographic archival images online. I have been active internationally in developing community archives. In May and June 2009, I worked in Techiman, Ghana, to establish the archives of the traditional council and studied the impact of placing this archival unit within a proposed community heritage center. From 2005 to 2006, I organized the archives of Culion, a former leprosarium in the Philippines, and curated a museum exhibit for the centennial of the community’s founding as a segregation facility. Prior to my doctoral work at Michigan, I taught on the faculty of the University of the Philippines School of Library and Information Studies, where I served as assistant professor of archives and library science and as museum archivist for the Vargas Museum. My articles have been published in Archives and Manuscripts, Archivaria, and Archival Science.

Sarah Ramdeen
Sarah Ramdeen is a fifth year doctoral student at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the project coordinator for the IMLS sponsored program – Educating Librarian in the Middle East: Building Bridges for the 21st Century (ELIME-21), a student fellow in the Earth Science Information Partners federation (ESIP) and she is also instructor for the graduate level course – Organizing of Information.

Her research interests include the information seeking behavior of geologists when seeking physical sample sets. Physical samples cannot be completely digitized but often have digital materials associated with them. These hybrid collections have unique curation needs which can be better understood by investigating how users access and use these collections.

Ms. Ramdeen holds a BS in Geology and a BA in Humanities from Florida State University (FSU). She also holds an MS in Library and Information Studies with a Certificate in Museum Studies from FSU. In the Fall of 2006 she was an intern in London at the Natural History Museum and before entering the PhD program at UNC, she worked for the Florida Geological Survey. Additional information can be found on her website.

Mario H. Ramirez
In addition to an M.S. in Library Science and Certificate in Archives and Records Management from Long Island University, C.W. Post, I hold a B.A. in American Studies from U.C. Santa Cruz and an M.A. in Rhetoric from U.C. Berkeley. Prior to working as an archivist, my studies and research focused primarily on film, art history, psychoanalysis, philosophy and racial politics in the U.S. and Latin America.

From January 2003 until June 2011, I worked as a Project Archivist at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, CUNY, where, among other things, I focused on the arrangement, description and appraisal of organizational records and personal papers from the Puerto Rican community in New York. For the past year and a half, I have worked as a Project Archivist in the Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley.

Starting this fall, I will be a doctoral student in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA, where my research will concentrate on the role of states of repression in the creation of documentary evidence, the archiving of human rights violations in Latin America, and the construction of memory and national identities in post-conflict societies and their Diasporas.

Robert Riter
My name is Robert Riter.  I am an assistant professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at The University of Alabama, where I coordinate the archival studies concentration.  My doctoral work was supervised in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh.

My research focus is in the area of archival history. I currently work on topics related to the foundations of archival thought and practice, and the history of American documentary editing.  The overall objective of this work is to identify and evaluate the threads of archival thinking that continue to influence archival theory and practice, offering an archeology of archival thought, and a useful discussion of its influence on contemporary archival practices.

At The University of Alabama, I teach in archival studies, history of the book, and the organization and description of information.  In my role as an archival educator, I believe that my most critical function is to assist students of archival studies in becoming critical readers of information objects.  An archival object is made up of cultural, intellectual, and material substances, all of which influence how an object will be contained, maintained, and managed by the archivist.  Through proper critical readings of archival objects, archivists can develop more effective methods for treating these works in their daily practice, and also obtain a better understanding of the consequences of their own archival interventions.

Cecilia Salvatore
I received my doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000. While I started out working under David Gracy and pursuing research in archives, I ended up focusing on information interaction in the library and other information agencies. I developed the archives program at Emporia State University, where I was on the faculty for 10 years and was a tenured faculty (besides Archives Program Coordinator, I was also Doctoral Program Coordinator).  I have developed the archives program at Dominican University, where I now teach — as of Fall 2009.

Prior to enrolling at UT-Austin, I was the Guam Territorial Librarian/Archivist. Prior to that, I was the Reference Librarian (Special Collections Librarian) at the Pacific Collections of the Micronesian Area Research Center at the University of Guam.  MARC is a world-renown center for research and resources related to Guam and Micronesia.

I am interested in archives, but more specifically on cultural heritage resources and services as they pertain to communities, such as those in Guam and Micronesia, that have a strong, oral tradition, and that have been colonies of powerful nations.  I am looking at the way these communities approach their cultural heritage resources and their history, and how these compare and contrast with mainstream approach.  I have conducted an assessment of the cultural heritage resources and services of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands through an IMLS C2C Planning Grant.

Anna Sexton
Since qualifying as a professional archivist I have worked as an academic researcher at UCL (LEADERS Project) before moving into the public sector where I have spent the last 7 years running a local authority archive service.  I am now studying for a PhD at UCL and my research interests are centered around exploring how archival processes can become more participative.  I am currently working with the Wellcome Library in London to explore the process involved in working with a marginalized stakeholder group to build a new digital archive collection based around lived experiences of recovery in mental health. I am particularly interested in exploring how authority in this process can be balanced between the contributors, the archivist/researcher and the institutional host.  I am looking at how, when, and why it is appropriate for control to be given over to the participants so that their influence extends not just over content generation but to the wider strategic decision making process inherent within the project.  I am interested in exploring participation in rivalrous contexts where consensus over a single way forward is more likely to be required (e.g. collection development and appraisal) as well as (so-called) nonrivalrous contexts where multiple viewpoints and pathways are possible and desirable (e.g. content generation and description). I am also interested in exploring the importance of understanding the link between the approach to participative archiving and the underpinning worldview of the institution/archivist and how these differences sometimes remain unarticulated within archival discourses.

Dewis Shallcross
Dewis Shallcross is a candidate for the Master’s degree in Latin American and Latino Studies at Fordham University in New York. She specializes in Latin American art and cultural heritage in the pre-Columbian and colonial periods, specifically, the development of religious art, the creation of national patrimony, and identity formulation in the New World. Her current research centers on the creation of national patrimony in Mexico and other Latin American and Caribbean countries through archaeological zones, symbols based on indigenous art, and state-produced “official” histories.

Rebecka Sheffield
Rebecka Sheffield is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, in collaboration with the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies. She holds an undergraduate degree in Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Saskatchewan, a post-graduate certificate in Book + Magazine Publishing from the Centre for Creative Communication at Centennial College, and a Master of Information Studies degree from the University of Toronto, where she specialized in archives and records management. Rebecka’s research draws from social movement theory and archival studies to explore the trajectories of queer archives as social movement organizations. Her dissertation project examines queer archives at a moment in time when the socio-political environment has opened up opportunities for these organizations to engage with the mainstream in ways previously unavailable. Rebecka is particularly interested in the partnerships that have developed between academic institutions and queer archives in the United States and Canada. Rebecka served as guest editor of Archivaria’s Special Section on Queer Archives and has been published in Museum Management & Curatorship and American Archivist. She publishes a blog, and is a volunteer archivist at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives.

Donghee Sinn
I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Information Studies, University at Albany (State University of New York). I teach and research in the field of the Archivals Studies. My research interests center on the use of archival materials in various domains with diverse approaches (a series of recent projects were about how historians utilize digital archival collections) and  personal archiving and public memory in the digital environment (several projects examined users’ activities of and perceptions about email, blog, Facebook, and other Web/electronic platforms for personal documentation). My most current projects include quantitative approaches to personal digital archiving practices and an empirical analysis about how historians’ actually find, locate, and use  digital archival collection for their published articles in the American Historical Review. I have my doctoral degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh. Previously, I worked at the National Archives of Korea in acquisition and appraisal.

Heather Soyka
I am a current doctoral student in archival studies at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Library and Information Sciences. I have a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College with a concentration in archives and records management. My research interests include recordkeeping behavior, documentation of war and conflict, knowledge transfer, community recordkeeping, and the relationships between organizational and personal records. My dissertation will explore the participation and record creating behaviors of active military officers within a particular community of practice.

As a teaching fellow, teaching assistant, and research assistant for the University of Pittsburgh iSchool, I have taken advantage of the opportunity to explore issues of access, advocacy, and sustainability in the classroom. Teaching a variety of archives and preservation courses, as well as providing support for LIS courses related to technology, copyright, and management has allowed me to build a personal foundation and philosophy of balanced teaching and research practices.

Joanna Steele
I am a fourth-year doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan. Having studied different institutional efforts to archive human rights records, I am now turning my attention to the ways in which satellite technologies have been enlisted by human rights organizations to monitor violations around the globe. These newly available powers of observation in the hands of non-state actors raise questions about the field of vision afforded by these technologies and the professional practices and techniques being developed to manage the ambiguity inherent to satellite imagery.

In 2008, I received my MLIS from UCLA, during which time I explored the active role of archivists as documentarians through oral history and documentary film projects. I gained experience processing archival collections at UCLA’s Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT) and Pepperdine University’s Special Collections. In a previous life, I worked as an editor for a major Russian news agency. I’m attempting to maintain my ties to Russia through periodic travel and service learning programs.

My approach to scholarship is multidisciplinary, narrative, and multimodal.

Jennifer Stevenson
I am currently in my second semester of my doctoral program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  I graduated with my MLIS and a concentration in Archival Studies in December 2010.  I then went on to receive my Certificate of Advanced Study in Digital Libraries.   My research interests are invested in the field of archival studies.   Specifically, digital archives, new and social media, and user studies and archival software development.   I am interested in information retrieval and the social impacts of information and communication technology amongst different user groups.

Professionally, I have been working in the world of digital archives.  Over the past several years I have worked at several institutions as a digital archivist consultant.

Tonia Sutherland
Tonia Sutherland holds a BA in theater, history and cultural studies from Hampshire College and an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh. Tonia has worked as a Research Library Resident in Special Collections & University Archives and Reference Services at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in addition to serving as University Archivist at the same institution. More recently, as Records Management Coordinator for Bucknell University, Tonia created and implemented a campus-wide Records Management initiative.

Now in her third year of doctoral study at the University of Pittsburgh, Tonia’s research interests include examining the intersections between contemporary archivy and performance and other forms of intangible cultural heritage. Tonia’s dissertation examines the ways performance is persistently represented in archives, exploring issues of archival custody and problematizing prevailing notions of information as evidence in archives.

In addition to her research, Tonia is a dedicated educator. She teaches courses such as Archives and Performance, Archival Representation and International Perspectives on Archives at Pitt’s iSchool.

Tomaro Taylor
Tomaro Taylor is a master¹s student in American Studies at the University of South Florida (USF) Tampa. She received Bachelor of Arts degrees in Psychology (1998) and American Studies (2001) and holds a Master of Arts in Library and Information Science (2002). A Certified Archivist, Tomaro currently works as a librarian and archivist at the Florida Mental Health Institute Research Library at USF Tampa. Her current research interests include: the representation of longshoremen in popular culture; the intersection of homoeroticism and performativity in gangsta rap; and culturally diverse collections in special collections and archives.

Helen Tibbo
Helen R. Tibbo, Alumni Distinguished Professor at the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), teaches in the areas of archives and records management, digital preservation and access, data management and curation, appraisal, and reference. She is currently the PI for the DigCCurrII project that is extending the digital curation curriculum developed in DigCCurr I to Ph.D. students and practitioners through research fellowships and a series of institutes. She is also the PI with co-PI Cal Lee on two additional IMLS projects. ESOPI-21 (Educating Stewards of Public Information in the 21st Century) and Closing the Digital Curation Gap (CDCG). Dr. Tibbo was also PI for the IMLS-funded DigCCurr Project that is developed an International Digital Curation Curriculum for master’s level students (www.ils.unc.edu/digccurr) (2006-2009). She is a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) and was a former SAA President (2010-2011).

Ciaran Trace
Ciaran B. Trace is an assistant professor at the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin where she teaches courses on archives and records management. Ciaran has a PhD in Library and Information Science from the University of California, Los Angeles and a postgraduate Diploma in Archival Studies from University College Dublin. Her research interests include:

• The material aspects of everyday life (particular focus on studying how and why individuals and institutions collect material culture, the intersection of material culture and information behavior, and digital materiality including the study of the artifactual nature of computers, computer systems, and digital objects)
• Theoretical and conceptual foundations of a multidisciplinary area of research that studies the nature of everyday documents and document work
• Nature, meaning, and function of everyday writing, recording, and recordkeeping (particular focus on organizational document creation and use, and the role of written literacies in the lives of children and young adults)
• Nature of archives and the archival profession (particular focus on the current state of archival education and the relationship between technology and pedagogy, the study of contemporary archival work and work practices and the intersection of archival science and Human Computer Interaction)

Myra Vasquez-Brambila
Myra Vasquez-Brambila is a candidate for a Bachelor of Arts in World History at the University of California, Merced. Born and raised in California’s Central Valley, Myra’s research interests include the history of the eugenics movement and the use of commonplace books in Early Modern England.

David Villarreal
My name is David Villarreal, and I was born and raised in the South Texas town of Corpus Christi.  After earning an undergraduate degree in Latin American history from Harvard, a master’s degree with a focus on Mexican-American history from Texas A&M, I am now a fourth-year doctoral candidate in U.S. history at The University of Texas at Austin. At the writing of this statement, I am currently working on my dissertation proposal which details my research agenda for investigating the intersection of public health and law as experienced by Queer of Color communities within the state of Texas. The archival enterprise plays a fundamental and critical role in my research since I incorporate non-historical research methods in order to create a new archive for people traditionally underrepresented in the most well-established archival centers.  Additionally, archival practices means so much to me that I spearheaded the creation of a new, annual recurring conference at UT Austin, which has the title The Mexican-American Archival Enterprise at the Benson Latin American Collection: An Historical Appraisal. The purpose of the spring 2013 conference and future ones will be to bring archivists, scholars, and the public together to shape the direction of the Mexican-American and Latin@ Collections at UT.

Michael Wartenbe
I have an academic background in Science and Technology Studies (BA) and Information Studies (MLS and Ph.D expected). My professional experience has been in special collections, archives and public libraries.

As a researcher, I am broadly interested in the role that technologies and practices of documentation play in processes of subjectification and sociopolitical organization. In this vein, my dissertation addresses the emerging dynamics between the Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems utilized by healthcare organizations and the personal recordkeeping technologies and practices of individuals involved in self-documentation. Consumer technologies and advocacy groups promoting self-tracking and self-measurement for health purposes are emerging everyday, but the archival implications of these trends have not yet been registered or analyzed.

My teaching philosophy privileges praxis and rigor, melding conceptual understanding with practical knowledge.

Kelvin White
Using social justice as a framework, Professor White’s research examines the interconnections between the social, cultural, and historical contexts in which recordkeeping activities exist and the implications they have for marginalized or underrepresented communities; critically interrogates contemporary archival theory and other constructs such as archival education and practice; and develops ways in which education and pedagogy might contribute to cultural relevancy and sensitivity in archival practice and research. This is significant because the memories and identity of minority communities are often subsumed and/or controlled through the hegemonic processes of the dominant culture.

Prof. White is a co-principal investigator of the Archival Education and Research Institute (AERI), which is a collaboration of archival education programs that aims to educate a new generation of academics in archival education who are versed in contemporary issues and knowledgeable of the work being conducted by colleagues. He is also serves as the Vice President of the International Council on Archive’s Section of Archival Education and Training (SAE) and is a Co-Chair of the Society of American Archivists’ Cultural Heritage Working Group (CHWG).

Eliot Wilczek
I am a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College. I have an MS in library and information science with an archives concentration and an MA in history from Simmons. I served as an adjunct instructor at GSLIS Simmons from 2005 through 2010, teaching archives and records management courses. I have worked as an archivist and records manager at three higher education institutions and currently serve as the University Records Manager for Tufts University.

My research interests center on recordkeeping behavior, records management, and archival appraisal. This records-centered research agenda is informed by other fields and theories, particularly assessment and evaluation, military affairs, and wicked problems. For my dissertation, I am examining how organizations document complex environments through an examination of US advisor reports written during the Vietnam War.

Heather Willever-Farr
I hold a master’s in history from the American University, Washington, D.C., and am currently pursuing my doctorate in information studies at Drexel University. In addition to being a fourth-year doctoral student, I am an online instructor for Drexel, having taught archival studies and healthcare informatics courses for the past three years. Previously, I managed the American College of Physicians’ archives and records management program, and served as the State of Indiana Electronic Records Archivist and the head of the State of Indiana’s records management program. I also served as a project archivist at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the University of Wisconsin Archives, and the History Division of the National Library of Medicine. In each of these positions, I found myself frustrated with the lack of time available to conduct research, particularly user research, so my current doctoral work was inevitable.

As a scholar, I am interested in extending participatory models of archival practice by developing knowledge of community-based archiving and collective memory creation. My doctoral research focuses on web-based communities that collaboratively build online archives for public consumption. One community that is actively engaged in collaborative archiving is the family history research (FHR) community. Contributors within these communities, many of whom can be classified as “citizen archivists,” provide historical data, images, and research information for others to use. While FHR’s collaborative archiving results in rich information and primary materials worthy of long-term preservation, much of this activity is occurring outside of the walls of memory institutions on both commercial- and community-based websites. Engaging with online FHR communities is important for memory institutions if they hope to have a role in the long-term preservation of these community-built archives and if they hope to develop an understanding of FHR’s collaborative archiving practices.

As my research focuses on both the social and technical features of websites for collaborative archiving, I study online artifacts produced by website contributors, the systems that support these production activities, and website contributors’ experiences with collaborative work. My research has implications for archival participatory practice and provides a foundation for the design of systems that support archives users as consumers and producers of historical materials. In addition, my research sheds light on the relationships and tensions between commercially-based and community-based FHR communities, and traditional memory institutions.

Charla Wilson
Charla Wilson is a first year graduate student in History at California State University, San Marcos. While her research interest is primarily in United State History, she has broad interests in African American History, the history of women in the United States, and American cultural history. Additionally, Charla is interested in expanding upon the research she conducted for her undergraduate thesis titled, “An Experience to Treasure”: A Critique of the American Girl Doll Company’s Depiction of American History, to focus on the intersection between the construction of historical memory and race in the company’s children’s literature. Furthermore, Charla is also interested in researching African American history in San Diego and W.E.B. Du Bois’ Brownies Book. While Charla has not fully conceptualized what a career in historical research will look like for her, she anticipates combining her passion for Education and History.

Charla also received her B.A. in American Studies, with an emphasis in United States History from Scripps College in 2011. Following her undergraduate education, she also received her M.A. in Education from Claremont Graduate University. Charla resides with her mother, father, and sister in San Diego, California.

Katherine Wisser
Katherine M. Wisser is Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science faculty at Simmons College. She has previously served as the Director of Instructional Services at the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has worked in Special Collections departments in New Hampshire and North Carolina, including a position as North Carolina State University Libraries Fellow and as metadata coordinator for the statewide initiative, North Carolina Exploring Cultural Heritage Online (NC ECHO). She was a teaching fellow at the School of Information and Library Science since 2000. She teaches generally courses on metadata, archival description, indexing and thesaurus construction, and the history of libraries. She has taught workshops for the Society of American Archivists since 2005. She has a Masters Degree in American History from the University of New Hampshire, a Masters in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. in Information and Library Science from UNC. She has served as EAD Roundtable Chair and Description Section Chair for the Society of American Archivists and President of the Society of North Carolina Archivists. She served as Chair of the EAC Working Group, which released Encoded Archival Context – Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families (EAC-CPF) in March 2010, which was formally adopted by SAA in January 2011. She currently serves as co-Chair of the Technical Subcommittee maintaining that standard.

Vivian Wong
I am a filmmaker by training and received my MFA in Directing from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television.  Several years ago, I made a film that changed my life and brought me to the PhD program in Information Studies at UCLA.  The film was a documentary about my grandmother from Malaysia entitled, “Homecoming”. While making this film, I experienced the power of visual images to hold history and transfer memory—a picture really is worth a thousand words and every picture does tell a story.  Moreover, I came to believe in the value and significance of one’s personal archive to validate one’s identity and make visible one’s experience; and in the importance of these archives as part of a greater whole to document, preserve, and display knowledge of the communities that one belongs.

As my film work explores personal histories, memories, and identities, my work in Archival studies engages those same ideas, but in the broader context of collective histories, memories, and experiences that are reconfigured in diasporas. My research explores memory-making in diaspora as exemplars of trauma and persistence, shock and continuity, and diversity, difference, and hybridity. I am also interested in the expression and transmission of memory-making practices in narrative genres of self (e.g., autoethnographies, memoirs, diaries/journals, letters, and travelogues); as well as how those memories are embodied and performed in the practices of local and transnational communities and circulated personally and collectively across time and space with the mediation of digital technologies.

Prior to returning to graduate school, I was the Assistant Director of the Center for EthnoCommunications at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center where I developed, produced, and promoted media about and by Asian Americans and their communities.  I also taught classes in community media, video ethnography, and documentary filmmaking at the UCLA Department of Asian American Studies.

I am planning to continue my career in academia.  I find teaching very rewarding and would like to teach in higher education in the foreseeable future.  I originally hail from the East Coast of the United States, growing up in Maryland and graduating from college in Pennsylvania where I majored in East Asian Studies.

Stacy Wood
Stacy Wood is a first year doctoral student in Information Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. She has a Bachelor of Arts in World Literature and Gender Studies from Pitzer College and a Masters in Library and Information Studies from University of California Los Angeles.  She is currently working with the Center for the Study of Women on an NEH funded project to process, digitize and publicize the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives. Her research interests are community archives, archival history, collective memory, government documents, military intelligence, infrastructure studies and the role of archival documents in popular culture.

Trudi Wright
Trudi Wright is a Ph.D. student at the McGill University School of Information Studies in Montréal, Canada. Her primary fields of study are records management, archival preservation, and information behaviour. Trudi Wright joined the doctoral program at the School for Information Studies (McGill University) to work with Professor Eun Park, after working for several years in a government agency as an information professional. Her research focus is on information culture, and measuring its influence on the implementation of information systems. The parametres of the study includes examining change management protocols and the roles information professionals play in the implementation process.

Trudi is currently working as a lecturer at the School of Information Studies (McGill University), teaching master’s level courses in preservation management, records management and metadata.  She has also taught business communications at Niagara College. Trudi studied adult education at Brock University, and is interested in the role adult learning design may have in teaching future information professionals. Her teaching philosophy is largely constructivist, and she hopes to develop curricula that allows learners to retain new knowledge by creating links with previously integrated knowledge and experience. Her current course curriculum design integrates experiential learning with workshops, lecture, and online discussion. Students have a participative role in determining the final course schedule, and the nature of assignments.

Trudi holds an MLIS from McGill University (2008), an MA in History from the University of Guelph (2005), and a bachelor’s degree in History and English Literature (2003).

Elizabeth Yakel
Elizabeth Yakel is a Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information where she teaches in the Archives and Records  Management and Preservation of Information specializations.  Her research interests include use and users of archival materials and the development of standardized metrics to enhance repository processes and as a result the user experience.  Beth’s most recent research project is “Dissemination Information Packages for Information Reuse” where she is studying data reuse and digital preservation of research data in three academic communities: quantitative social scientists, archaeologists, and zoologists. Funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the goal of this research is to identify the significant properties that support both preservation of the bits as well as the preservation of meaning overtime.

Kan Zhang
I am a first year student in Information Studies department, UCLA. Prior to returning to the graduate school, I worked as a civil servant in Foreign Enterprise Department, State Administration of Industry and Commerce for three years in China, where I developed, produced, and promoted digital archive about foreign enterprises records. I am interested in bridging between two countries by introducing the different data and archival practices of the U.S. and China. In particular, my research involves using ethnographic techniques to study how people use and develop technical infrastructure, how cultural elements could influence the feminine knowledge base. Based on the research, I will continue my research focusing on various cultural impacts on archival and data curation studies.

Lian Zhiying
I am an associate professor at the department of Library, Information and Archival Studies, Shanghai University, China. I graduated from Renmin University, China, attaining the Ph.D degree in archival studies.  Now I am a visiting scholar at University of California, Los Angeles. My research interests mainly focus on the archives laws, access to archives,especially access to digital archives, archives culture.