911������

Q: Please share any additional academic plans (dual degree, research focus, minor, specialization, etc.) you may be pursuing.

A: I am pursuing graduate certificates in Feminist Studies and Climate Change and Health.

Q: Please tell us about your background and why you decided to come to the iSchool.

A: I am a trained archivist with work experience in Latin America and the United States, culture and arts, community storytelling, and metadata and descriptive practices. After acquiring my MSIS from the University of Texas at Austin, I worked in the field for a couple of years as a Latin American metadata librarian focused on community recordkeeping and digital multilingual public access. While in this position, I found my interests gravitating toward conducting community-based research and teaching across age populations about archives, libraries and information science topics. During this period, I also recognized the need for newer generations to acquire management skills in order to assist with the maintenance and growth of GLAM [galleries, libraries, archives, museums] fields and institutions. Given my own difficult youth experiences with memories, especially the emotional and mental impact of loss and access to my stories and records, I wanted to study with faculty and students who emphasized the importance of emotions and well-being. I chose the UW due to its robust research on youth participation in information and library spaces as well as some faculty's focus on memories, archives and culture as tools for social and personal care and change.

Q: What excites you about the information field?

A: I find the broadness of the term “information” to be both exciting and daunting. In most of my experiences when discussing this field with others, I have found the ability to explain information in wide-ranging ways or through diverse examples as useful entry points for deeper discussions. While for many the possibilities of what information can be may feel intimidating, I personally enjoy the malleability of being able to think beyond past, current, or even future predictions of information forms. I would say this same plasticity also allows for divergent uses of this information across multiple environments, scenarios, and most importantly living being needs. I gravitate toward the social aspects of information sciences, and I have found it to be very useful to be in a field where we have one big concept of information in your degree title. It's always very exciting because there's something new and that curiosity drives a lot of my interest, which keeps me motivated. 

Q: What’s been your favorite iSchool course or learning experience? 

A: While I had a tough start to my doctoral program given the choice to start this program during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I can recall a number of memorable experiences. I really enjoyed supporting online-only KidsTeam sessions, attending quaint online seminars with professors like Anna Lauren Hoffmann and conducting interviews with young students as part of my TASCHA fellowship. I would even say now after almost five years since 2020, I appreciate the intimate relationships I managed to cultivate with a few Ph.D. colleagues and faculty despite the immense disruptions that the pandemic brought forth.

Q: What’s the most important non-technical skill you have learned that you would consider necessary for this field? 

A: The most important skill lies in balancing translation and transliteration. In this field, people often come from diverse and drastically different backgrounds. Since I work across a large age group, I need to remain sensitive to those differences. Developing the ability to work effectively in libraries, archives and academic units, each with its own areas of expertise, has been an invaluable skill in this field. 

It’s important to communicate across each person’s differences and listen to their perspectives. While I’m unsure if I enjoy others’ differences because of this, I have always loved working in teams. I find it fascinating to watch different variables come together in a group setting. However, as you advance in your career, it becomes less about observing how things will play out and more about getting through the task at hand. It’s a great skill to be able to come into a group and acknowledge the strengths that everyone brings and figure out how I’m going to acknowledge their strengths while also communicating and applying my own. I think I developed this from different experiences and learned to be attentive to what people are saying as well as how they felt after. Another essential skill is being able to understand others’ feelings without depending on them telling you how they feel with words. 

Q: What advice do you have for students interested in GLAM fields who may not know where to start? 

A: My best advice is to try things out. If you're at a place where you are brand new to this world of information or informatics, try things out. Whether it’s a group project, an internship, or volunteering for your own self satisfaction, give it a shot. 

When you're not in school, you're not asked to try new things, but simply to do tasks. I would recommend testing things out and seeing how they fit. I've lived a lot of lives, but they've been intentional lives that I’ve always wanted to try, and I like the idea now that I can, with more certainty, know that those past lives weren’t for me, and that’s OK. Obviously that comes from a great place of privilege, but if that is a barrier, then you can always test things out in other ways, like volunteering or taking a call. Take risks according to how possible those risks are and how comfortable you are with admitting that was a waste of time (which is OK).

Q: What is next on the horizon for you?

A: I would like a university teaching job once I finish my Ph.D. program. Right now I am focusing my time, skills and research goals on how best to prepare for a career. Even with the uncertainty of the future in this country and perhaps the world, I want to find ways to engage with students across ages, backgrounds and interests as teaching has become a major motivator in my life. 

However, recognizing the changing demographics in the archives field, I may also find myself in a position to direct teams and institutions, which I also find fulfilling. The market is so unpredictable that this "future me" question feels a little scary to answer, but I would like to keep dreaming that I will find myself surrounded by communities that I want to work with and that together we can explore and address crucial or emerging issues in fields like archives, libraries, and other cultural heritage institutions.