Certified archivist and cultural anthropologist with experience in collections management, small museums operations, and non-profit program management. I teach courses in information science with specialty in collections management and archival practices. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, I apply non-dominant cultural perspectives and critical approaches to cultural heritage preservation practices. Center to my work is place, culture, and identity as they relate to cultural heritage preservation in libraries, archives, and museums, and the reciprocal relationship between creators, preservation work, and society.

I preserve cultural heritage materials and study the people that make them.

Research Interests: Memory-keeping practices; interdisciplinary approaches in information science in libraries, archives, and museums; mytho-historical societal and symbolic expressions in cultural material artifacts; bio-mythography and literary anthropology; Black/African American and Chicano/Mexican-American material culture & cultural heritage knowledge practices; and the application of tradition and folklore in cultural heritage preservation. Doctoral scholar in Expressive Material Culture, Narratives, and Collective Memory.

field quotes

A powerful way we connect with a diverse world is by listening to the different stories we are told. These stories are a way of knowing. Therefore, they contain both power and the art of possibility. We need more stories.

bell hooks

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Zora Neale Hurston

Oral traditions remain a most important way of developing trust, sharing information, strategies, advice, contacts, and ideas.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith

Let’s work together.