Engaged in the taskscapes of cultural preservation.
As an interdisciplinary scholar, I engage cultural knowledge and materials through reflective and creative inquiry.
My work encompasses the socio-cultural and technological aspects of preservation informed by critical approaches to collections practices. This includes material culture, traditional memory keeping practices, archival & museum praxis, embedded and vernacular knowledge, and narrative agency and structure. My areas of focus are place as cultural memory, object narrative theory in collections, knowledge networks in communities of practice, and community-driven cultural heritage preservation.
Cultural heritage institutions such as libraries, archives, and museums (LAM) are a vital part of our communities. As an archivist and as a past President of the Museum Association of Arizona I contribute to advocacy for cultural heritage institutions and support for the staff and volunteers. I am an active board member and work with an incredible team of scholars in support of Southwest Folklife Alliance. I am also member of the Az Museum Archives Working Group, working to develop a model for museum practitioners to help make collections discoverable and accessible to researchers.
About Me
Focusing on the connections we develop between humans, objects, and the stories we tell, I studied English Literature with a thematic minor in Africana Studies & Anthropology in my undergraduate program. I then earned advanced degrees in Information Resources and Library Science at the University of Arizona and in Applied Anthropology at Humboldt State University. I have extensive experience working with small museums & archives, in nonprofit program management, and as a board member with multiple cultural organizations.
I am an Associate Professor teaching graduate courses at the University of Arizona College of Information Science and I manage the Knowledge River Scholars program. Knowledge River is designed to foster cultural literacy and engaged scholarship in a community of practice through academic and professional development while honoring the embedded and vernacular knowledge of KR scholars.
Preservation often seeks to stabilize cultural heritage, while memory keeping recognizes memory as living, relational, and continually reinterpreted.
Memory keeping is primarily about meaning, identity, and lived experience. It refers to the ways individuals and communities remember, transmit, and sustain cultural knowledge over time. It can be informal, embodied, emotional, relational, and community-based.
Preservation is often associated with the intentional protection, maintenance, stabilization, and stewardship of cultural materials, records, practices, or sites.
Berlin Loa 