Amelia Acker is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication & Information at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Her research on data management and digital preservation has been supported with funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the National Science Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the ACM History and Archiving Fellowship. Acker’s projects address the representation and loss of digital traces, the history of data management, and the transmission of information through time. She investigates how infrastructure and organizational practices shape the preservation, accessibility, and governance of data, with a particular focus on the impact of platforms, software, and AI on archives and digital memory. Acker is the author of Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms (MIT, 2025), which will be the subject of this DAIS talk.

Estevan Rael-Gálvez is the executive director of Native Bound Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery. Trained as an anthropologist and historian, Dr. Rael-Gálvez has served as the former Senior Vice President of Historic Sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, and as the state historian of New Mexico. A native son of New Mexico, Estevan was raised on a farm and ranch stewarded by his family for multiple generations. He received his BA in English Literature and Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MA and Ph.D. in American Cultures from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he completed an award-winning doctoral dissertation, the basis of a current book project.

Trevor Owens is chief research officer at the American Institute of Physics. Prior to joining AIP, Trevor Owens was the director of Digital Services at the Library of Congress. Over the past decade, Owens has held progressively senior roles, advancing vision and strategies for the future of research organizations. While serving at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), he was responsible for convening representatives from libraries, associations, funders and technology innovators to establish the National Digital Platform framework. Through his work at the Library of Congress, IMLS and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, Owens gained extensive experience and background in history of science research, library and archives leadership and management, and applied social science research. He has a particular expertise and interest in the power of digital assets and content, which aligns with AIP’s strategic vision. And in 2023, he served as a member of AIP’s Blue-Ribbon Panel engaged to recommend a strategic vision for the future of AIP’s history, library and archives programs.

Thuy Vo Dang (she/her) is assistant professor of information studies and Asian American studies at UCLA. She holds a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, San Diego and a B.A. in English and Asian American Studies from Scripps College. Her previous role was curator for the UCI Libraries Southeast Asian Archive and research librarian for Asian American studies. With research and teaching expertise in oral history, Southeast Asian diaspora, community archives and cultural memory, Thuy brings an interdisciplinary approach to co-creating digital humanities and archival documentation projects with educators and community-based organizations. She is co-author of the books A People’s Guide to Orange County (2022) and Vietnamese in Orange County (2015). Thuy serves on the board of directors for Arts OC and the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association.

Jarrett Martin Drake is an educator, ethnographer and organizer who is currently a PhD candidate in anthropology at Harvard University. Prior to pursuing a doctoral degree, Drake obtained a BA in history and an MS in information science with a concentration in archives from the University of Michigan School of Information, during and after which he worked as an archivist and librarian in multiple institutional and non-institutional contexts, most meaningfully with A People’s Archive of Police Violence in Cleveland. Drake was born and raised in Gary, Indiana, where he graduated from The Benjamin Banneker Achievement Center.

Emily Drabinski is associate professor in the Queens (NY) College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. She serves as 2023-2024 president of the American Library Association. 

Beth Patin is an Assistant Professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies. Her research, teaching, and service all center information justice and equity, by investigating epistemicide and epistemic justice, community resilience and crisis informatics and cultural responsiveness in an effort to work towards a more just community. Currently, she is working on projects about epistemicide (the silencing, killing, or devaluing of knowledge systems) and digital humanities and the Civil Rights Movement. 

André Odendaal is the vice-chancellor’s writer-in-residence and an honorary professor in history and heritage studies at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). He received his first degrees from Stellenbosch University and his PhD from Cambridge University. Thereafter, he spent 13 years at the University of the Western Cape, where he started and directed the pioneering Mayibuye Center for History and Culture in South Africa, with its large multi-media archive on apartheid and the liberation struggle. Here he launched the Mayibuye History and Literature Series and, as joint series editor, oversaw the publication of 85 books on South African history (including the re-issuing of many titles of the previously banned International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa). 

Anthea Josias, PhD, is a lecturer at the University of Michigan School of Information, where she teaches courses in preservation, program assessment and data science. Formerly, she was the archives and collections manager at the Mayibuye Center and the Robben Island Museum. 

Diana E. Marsh is an assistant professor of archives and digital curation at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies (iSchool) who investigates how heritage institutions communicate with the public and communities. Her current research focuses on improving discovery and access to colonially-held archives for Native American and Indigenous communities. Previously, she completed her PhD in anthropology (museum anthropology) at the University of British Columbia, an MPhil in social anthropology with a museums and heritage focus at the University of Cambridge in 2010, and a BFA in visual arts and photography at the Mason Gross School of the Arts of Rutgers University in 2009. Her recent work has appeared in JASIST, The American Archivist, Archival Science, and Archivaria, and her book, From Extinct Monsters to Deep Time: Conflict, Compromise, and the Making of Smithsonian’s Fossil Halls was released in paperback with Berghahn Books in fall 2022. 

Gracen Brilmyer (they/them) is a Disabled researcher working at the intersection of feminist disability studies and archival studies. Their work investigates the erasure of disabled people in archives primarily within the history of natural history museums and colonial histories as well as how disabled people experience themselves in archival material. They are currently assistant professor at McGill University and director of the Disability Archives Lab. Find a bibliography for Dr. Brilmyer's seminar talk at http://disabilityarchiveslab.com/crippingabsence.