About Me.
A Passionate Eye for Effective|Affective Information
I am passionate about information: using it to engage, educate, and empower people and communities. I believe knowledge is transformative and information technology exciting, particularly when used creatively and with consciousness to make a difference and foster inclusion through media and communications. Inspired by information's power and technologies, I harness both through my work to convert ideas and plans into archives, social media campaigns, and operations.
I work with individuals, organizations, and institutions as an information specialist, archivist, communications manager, and media producer. I have over fifteen years of work experience in research institutions, including university libraries, archives, research centers, and academic departments. I also collaborate with cultural heritage and non-profit organizations through consulting and volunteer work.
I am an award-filmmaker and have my M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). I am originally from the East Coast, attended college in Pennsylvania, and currently reside in Southern California.
Education
2015
University of California, Los Angeles
Ph.D., Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, Department of Information Studies, Dissertation: Asian Greek Sisterhoods: Archives, Affects, and Belongings in Asian American Sororities, 1929 – 2015.
University of California, Los Angeles
M.F.A., School of Theater, Film, and Television, Department of Film, Directing, Thesis: Homecoming.
Bryn Mawr College
B.A., East Asian Studies, cum laude.
Work Experience
Project Archivist
Corky Lee Collection
Corky Lee Estate, New York, NY
• Performing preliminary survey and physical assessment of the materials in the Corky Lee Collection
Project Archivist
Leon Knopoff Publication Project
Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences Department
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
595 Charles Young Drive East
Los Angeles, CA 90095
• Edited and proofed university professor, emeritus, and bibliography of his published works for printing in a multivolume collection of his research articles and writings.
January 2020 – August 2020
Project Archivist
Gold Shield Alumnae of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
James West Alumni Center, Los Angeles, CA 90025
• Inventory and appraise administrative records of Gold Shield Alumnae organization: its past presidents and executive board
• Reprocess Gold Shield Record Collections at UCLA Library Special Collections, merging them with recently collected materials from the organization's members
• Review and edit Gold Shield Record Collections' finding aids on the Online Archives of California (O.A.C.)
• Develop digital infrastructures for Gold Shield digital records
• Facilitate donor relations with Gold Shield members
RDA/US Data Share Fellow
Research Data Alliance (R.D.A.) Postdoctoral Fellowship
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation & National Science Foundation
C/o Data to Insight Center, Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47408
• Conducted research that examined how digital platforms and metadata tools are applied to describe and analyze unstructured visual life oral histories data
• Developed digital infrastructures for oral histories archives and collections
• Participated in Digital Practice in History and Ethnography (DPHE) Interest Group and Empirical Humanities Metadata Working Group to explore, develop, and define emerging intellectual inquiries and initiatives in history, ethnography, and humanities as they intersect with digital data and access
• Presented research at Research Data Alliance Plenaries in Montreal, Canada, and Berlin, Germany
Researcher & Project Archivist
Faculty Papers, Gender Studies Department, UCLA
345 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90024
• Described and cataloged faculty papers of a founder of Science & Technology Studies, providing research access to her work and preparing her papers for a digital archive
• Created index of faculty member's research to enable intellectual access to her archive
Program Representative
Undergraduate Research Center for the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, UCLA
Murphy Hall, 410 Charles E. Young Dr., East, Los Angeles, 90024
• Produced educational media for Center with UCLA Powell Library that instructed undergraduates about how to do research at the university
• Produced videos about university faculty, designed to introduce undergraduates to educational opportunities on campus through professors' courses and scholarship
Subject Specialist Archivist & Consultant
Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA
280 Charles E. Young Dr., North, Los Angeles, CA 90095
University Archives, January 2010 – June 2014
• Performed collection appraisal and wrote descriptions of university archives holdings through online finding aids
• Processed faculty papers and department administrative records, including archival appraisal, description, and preservation
Collecting Los Angeles Project, March 2010 – October 2013
• Contributed to Collecting Los Angeles Project's mission of documenting ethnic communities by cultivating donor relations with Southern Californian Asian American communities and cultural heritage organizations
• Appraised and accessioned subscription of local community newspaper published by Chinese American organization in the San Gabriel Valley
• Re-surveyed and re-appraised UCLA Library Special Collections' Southern Californian Chinese American Oral History Project, including finding aids, indexes, and oral history interviews in English, Mandarin Chinese, and Cantonese Chinese
Center for Primary Research and Training, January 2009 – September 2010
• Re-surveyed, re-appraised, and edited finding aids of the Japanese American Research Project (JARP) Collection
Project Archivist
Roy Morales Collection, Torrance, CA, 90503
• Appraised and preliminarily processed the personal and professional papers of UCLA-affiliated social scientist and Filipino American community leader on behalf of the Library of Congress
Assistant Director & Multimedia Producer
Center for EthnoCommunications, UCLA Asian American Studies Center
3230 Campbell Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095
• Center's administrator and office manager, duties included: grant writer and manager, fiscal budget and financial manager, supervising student interns, and academic advising
• Supervised and directed the Center's digital media production and post-production lab; duties included: purchasing and maintaining video equipment and supplies, instructional support of lab's equipment for dept. courses, and managing film library
• Taught courses about community media-making, documentary filmmaking, visual ethnography, and oral history methodology for the Center in the Asian American Studies Department
• Project Manager of the Center's Residents of the Firm: Video Oral History Project
• Project Manager of the Center's Eye to Eye: Asian American Artists oral history project, funded by a multi-year (3 yrs.) grant from the National Endowment of the Arts
• Planned and organized the Center's 2-day community media conference, EthnoCommunications: Documenting Multiethnic Communities
Publications (selected)
"Archives (Re)imagined Elsewhere: Asian American Community-based Archival Organizations," in Through the Archival Looking Glass, edited by Kathi Neal and Mary Caldera, with Tom Ikeda, Ellen-Rae Cachola, and Florante Ibanez (Chicago, IL: Society of American Archivist Press, 2014).
"Journeys To and Fro: Recalling and Writing' Home(s)'," Center for the Study of Women (C.S.W.) Update (UCLA Center for the Study of Women, 2012).
"Making the Record from Memory: A Case for Documenting the Personal," Proceedings of the 2009 Housing Memory Conference, Toronto, Canada, in a special issue of the University of Toronto Faculty of Information Quarterly Journal, Vol. 1, No. 3 (2009).
Filmography & Film Credits (selected)
Community of Friends, Producer and Director, Premiere 2011
Pilgrimage, Associate Producer, Premiere 2006
Official Selection at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Park City, UT
Homecoming, Writer, Director, and Editor, Premiere 2005
Awarded Best Short Documentary, Houston World Fest, TX; Best Documentary, Berkeley Video and Film Festival, CA; Opening Night Film at the GLOBIANS Potsdam World Culture Documentary Film Festival, Germany; and Opening Night Film at the Asian Poster Exhibit, Track 16 Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA
Residents of the Firm: Video Oral History Project, Associate Producer, 2004
Produced by the UCLACenter for EthnoCommunications, Little Tokyo Service Center, and Downtown Media Center.
Lauren, Writer, Director, and Editor, Premiere 1999, T.V. Broadcast Premiere 2000
Eye to Eye: Asian American Artists, Associate Producer, Premiere 2001.
Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowships, Grants, & Honors (selected)
• Research Data Alliance Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2017 – 2018
• Department of Information Studies Travel Grant, UCLA, 2011 – 2014
• Archival Education and Research Institute Doctoral Scholarship, UCLA, 2011 – 2014
• Conference Travel Award, Society of East Asian Anthropologists, 2011
• Harold T. Pinkett Minority Student Award, Society of American Archivists, 2010
• University Graduate Fellowship, UCLA, 1999, 2000, 2010, and 2011
• Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Program Fellowship, UCLA, 2008 and 2009
• 21st Century Graduate Fellowship, Asian American Studies Center, UCLA, 2008
• Chinese American Library Association Scholarship, 2008
• Asian Pacific American Library Association Scholarship, 2008
• Information Studies Diversity Student Paper Award, Honorable Mention, UCLA, for "Making Records from Memory: A Case for Documenting the Personal," 2008
• Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship, American Library Association, 2008 – 2011
• Open Night Film, GLOBIANS Potsdam World Culture Documentary Film Festival, for Homecoming, 2005
• Best Short Documentary, Houston World Fest, TX, for Homecoming, 2005
• Best Documentary, Berkeley Video and Film Festival, CA, for Homecoming, 2005
• Institute for American Culture Research Grant, UCLA, 2000 and 2005
• Carroll Sax Award, UCLA School of Theater, Film, & Television, 2000
• Bill Lan Lee Award, UCLA School of Theater, Film, & Television, 2000
Presentations (selected)
Since 2003 I have given over 60 papers and presentations at universities and meetings of professional and scholarly organizations in anthropology, Asian American studies, digital humanities, East Asian studies, film studies, and library and archival sciences.
"Plying Diverse Data: A Study of Weaving Visual Life Oral Histories Collections through Flexible Digital Infrastructures," Research Data Alliance (R.D.A.) 11th Plenary and Conference, Berlin, Germany, March 2018; Poster presentation.
"Weaving Data Fabric for the Empirical Humanities: Flexible Metadata, Meshwork, and Other Challenges," Research Data Alliance (R.D.A.) 10th Plenary and Conference, Montreal, Canada, September 2017; Poster presentation.
"Archives as Research Design," In Picturing History: Archival Research for Documentary Film – Undergraduate Seminar, Asian American Studies Department, UCLA, Instructor: Professor Renee Tajima-Penã, April 2017.
"Building Processual Infrastructures for an Oral Life History-based Digital Humanities Research Collaboration," Digital Humanities Infrastructure Symposium (DHIS), University of California, Los Angeles, February 2017; Co-organizer and Presenter.
"Intersections of Margins and Mainstreams in Minority Academic Careers," Feminist Epistemologies - Graduate Seminar, Gender Studies Department, UCLA, Instructor: Professor Sharon Traweek, April 2016.
"Documenting Asian American Public Cultures: Oral Histories, Community Ethnographies, and Visual Storytelling," In Asian American Documentary Practices - Undergraduate Seminar, Asian American Studies, and Film & Media Studies Departments, Instructor: Julie Cho, University of California, Irvine, October 2015.
"Crafting Sisterhood: Hand-making an Archive of Care in Collegiate Life," Affect and the Archives, UCLA Human Rights Archives Symposium Series, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, November 2014.
"Sentimental Acts of Belonging: Crafting Kinship in Asian American Women Organizations," Archival Education and Research Institute (AERI) Conference, University of Texas, Austin, TX, June 2013.
"Oral Histories, Community Ethnographies, and Video Storytelling," In Community Archives - Graduate Seminar, Information Studies Department, UCLA, Instructor: Professor Michelle Caswell, May 2013.
"Histories and Identities: Creating the Diasporic Community Archives through Digital Narratives," Second Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC), Kansas City, MO, September 2012.
"Writing 'home(s)': Inheriting the Transpacific Asian/American Woman Archive through Letters and Diaries," Anthropology Conference, Rethinking Inheritance, The New School for Social Research, New York, NY, April 2012.
"Global (Re)mix: Consuming Family, Food, and Fusion in Japanese European Cuisine in America," SEAA (Society for East Asian Anthropology) Conference, Material Asia: Objects, Technologies, and Rethinking Success, Jeonju, South Korea, July 2011.
"Documenting 'home' in the Diaspora: Memory, Records, and Identities in the Archival Imaginary," Women in the Archives: Organizing Knowledge, Brown University, Providence, RI, April 2011.
"Documenting "Home" in the Diaspora: Memory, Records, and Identities in the Archival Imaginary," Viral Ports, Virtual Currents: Interconnections of Media, the Arts, and the Everyday in Southeast Asia and its Diasporas, Conference at the University of California, Riverside, October 2009.
"Media-making, the Archive, and Archival Education: Documenting History, Memory, and Identity through Video Narratives," in the "Sustaining the Global and Local Archival Profession through Re-Conceptualizing Education" panel at the Society of American Archivist (S.A.A.) Conference, Sustainable Archives, Austin, TX, August 2009.
"Engaging Community: Methods and Values in Community Informatics," iConference 2009 ~ iSociety: Research, Engagement, Education, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, February 2009.
"Creating Memory & Representing Identity: Archives in the Asian American Community," ARCHIVES 2008: Archival R/Evolution & Identities, Society of American Archivist (S.A.A.) Conference, San Francisco, CA, August 2008; Organizer and Chair.
"Working From Within: Participatory Practices in Diverse Communities," Community Engagement: Integrating Learning, Research, and Practice, ALISE (Association of Library and Information Science Education) Conference, Philadelphia, PA, January 2008.
"The Road Less Taken in Information Studies," for the Path to the Ph.D. panel at the American Library Association Spectrum Leadership Institute, Crystal City, VA, June 2007.
"Intimacies and Immigration: Video Diaries of Diasporic Homes," Chinese in North America, Public Eye / Private Lenses: Visualizing the Chinese in Indonesia and North America, University of British Columbia Institute of Asian Research (I.A.R.) International Conference, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, March 2007.
"Uncovering Ourselves: Storytelling through Oral History and Family Photos," Special Programs commemorating Asian Pacific Heritage Month at Grant H. Brimhall Public Library, Thousand Oaks, CA, April 2007.
"Local and Global Storytelling: EthnoCommunications and Documenting Community," Globalization, Regionalism, and Identity, Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) National Conference, Los Angeles, CA, April 2005.
"EthnoCommunications: Defining and Redefining Ourselves," International Forum for Community Media and EthnoCommunications. Community, Communications, and Digital Technology: Documenting the Local and Global in the 21st Century, Tainan National University for the Arts, Tainan, Taiwan R.O.C., June 2004; Co-organizer and Presenter.
"Increasing Visibility and 'Telling Your Story': Approaches in Documenting Community," Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (CAPACD) National Conference, Los Angeles, CA, May 2004.
"EthnoCommunications: Connecting Art, Advocacy, and the Academy," Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) National Conference, San Francisco, CA, May 2003.
Professional Memberships
• Empirical Humanities Metadata Working Group, Research Data Alliance (R.D.A.), Member, 2017 – present
• Digital Practices in History and Ethnography Interest Group, Research Data Alliance (R.D.A.), Member, 2017 – present
• Research Data Alliance (R.D.A.), Member, 2017 – present
• Cultural Heritage, Archives, Libraries, Information Studies section (CHALIS), Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS), Founding Member, 2013 – present
• Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS), Member, 2003 – present
• Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S), Member, 2017
• Society for American Archivists (S.A.A.), Member, 2008 – 2010, 2012, 2016
• Asian Pacific American Library Association (APALA), Member, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2016
• Association of American Anthropology (A.A.A.), Member, 2012
• Association of American Studies (A.S.A.), Member, 2012
• Chinese American Library Association (CALA), Member, 2008 and 2009
• Association of Library and Information Science Education (ALISE), Member, 2008 and 2009
• National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC), Member, 2004 and 2005
• Independent Feature Project (I.F.P.), Member, 2004 and 2005
Service to the Community
• Friends of the Chinatown Library, Los Angeles, CA, Executive Board, Member, 2013–2014
• Friends of the Chinatown Library, Los Angeles, CA. Honorary Lifetime Member from 2011
• Programming Committee, Feature Films, The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, VC FILMFEST, 2005 – 2009
Consulting
• West Los Angeles Holiness Church, 2019 – present
• Children Amputee Prosthetics Project (CAPP), 2017 – 2020
• Chinese Historical Society of Southern California (CHSSC), 2014 – 2016
• Chinatown Remembered Oral History Project, CHSSC, 2007 – 2008