Greetings! I am an Assistant Professor in Digital Curation at the School of Information & Library Science at UNC Chapel Hill, where I teach and conduct research on born-digital and digitized heritage artifacts.
My work considers the interpretive and epistemological contexts in which communities (humanities scholars, digital preservationists, K-12 educators, software curators) engage with digital primary sources, including legacy software, land transaction documents, archival photographs.
Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches from information science, archival studies, practice theory, and social phenomenology, I examine how these materials are used in interpretive pursuits. Through this research, I aim to develop both theoretical insights and practical strategies that support the preservation and endurance of the cultural record.
The Latest
- Two new publications, IMLS funding updates, and the Deborah Barreau Award for Teaching Excellence
- 🚨 NEW PUBLICATION ALERT The Stories We Can Tell: Using Digital Primary Sources in the Archival Studies Classroom with Drs. Eliscia Kinder and Elliott Kuecker in The American Archivist.
- I am honored to share that I have received the Deborah Barreau Award for Teaching Excellence.
- This past spring, the Diving into Archives! Project held our first K-12 Educator Workshop in collaboration with the North Carolina Collection at the Durham Public Library. Our project team will be presenting our work, “Engaging Grades 9-12 Teachers in Place-Based Archival Instruction” on May 21st at the 41st Society of North Carolina Archivists (SNCA) Conference.
- 🚨 NEW PUBLICATION ALERT “Conceptual Approaches to Information-as-Potentiality” with Annie Chen in Information Research. Presented in March at iConference 2025. Nominee for Best Long Paper!
- The DigiStew research project has been officially paused due to IMLS funding termination. However, the advisory board and the research team continues to meet and work on CoP milestones.
- IMLS Early Career Award, Research Data Management Education Summit, Digital Presservation MIT Press Book, and more
- I am the proud recipient of an IMLS Early Career Award for a three-year research project to investigate how born-digital stewards describe their current needs and challenges; what professionalization pathways exist; and what role, impact, and value communities of practice have in born-digital stewardship.
- I am working with a group of iSchool educators on the NSF-funded Research Data Management Education Summit (RDMES) to take place at the ASIS&T Annual Conference in 2025.
- In the September/October issue of Archival Outlook, I discuss the Hacking into History project and our work on using public records to raise awareness and empower community members.
- I received a SILS Faculty Kilgour Research Award, to study how archival outreach and instruction efforts can engage K-12 educators. Currently, I am conducting a research study of North Carolina history and English teachers working throughout the state to understand how they use primary sources and archives in their classrooms. In Spring 2025, I will be working with SILS Professor Elliott Kuecker and doctoral student Lyric Grimes to hold a workshop for K-12 educators at the Durham Public Library.
- Dr. Rhiannon Bettivia and I have published a draft of Provenance, a chapter for the upcoming MIT Press book Digital Preservation: A Critical Vocabulary. Feedback is welcomed and will be accepted until December 2024.
- In November 2024, I will be presenting at the Association for Computers in the Humanities Annual Conference on community-driven approaches to historic data.
- Civic Data Literacy, iPRES2023, and Hacking into History
- I will be working with the Civic Switchboard Project on Civic Data Literacy for Libraries, a newly awarded IMLS grant to host regional institutes for library workers interested in serving as intermediaries between community members and civic data.
- In September, I’ll be moderating a panel at iPRES 2023 called “Community is We: Modeling Collective Action as a Framework for Digital Preservation.” The focus of our discussion is how can collective action build global capacity for digital stewardship?
- The Hacking into History Project is pleased to be joining a roundtable discussion with covenant projects from across the US at the 10th Biennial Conference of the Urban History Association: Reparations and the Right to the City.