Leadership Group

Leadership Team

The NDSA Leadership consists of the elected Coordinating Committee, the chairs/co-chairs of the Interest and Working Groups, and a representative from the Host Organization. Together, the Coordinating Committee and the Interest and Working Group chairs work to articulate a long-term, strategic vision for NDSA. The Leadership group meets once a month online and in person once during the Digital Preservation Annual Conference.

Select activities of the Leadership group include:

Approving new NDSA member applications.
Creating and reviewing NDSA publications (e.g. The NDSA Agenda).
Evaluating the effectiveness of the Interest and Working Groups and providing guidance and assistance to the Group chairs as appropriate. This can include recommending the creation, consolidation, or disbanding of Interest or Working Groups and working to eliminate unnecessary duplication of effort.
Coordinating with DLF on administrative management of the NDSA.
Working with international partners to extend digital preservation advocacy and awareness.
Working with parent organization to plan the DigiPres conference.
Creating and reviewing the annual roadmap for the NDSA.

For items that need to be voted on, the Interest and Working group chairs are considered to be ex officio members; they do not vote and their presence is not counted as part of a quorum. Only the elected CC members may vote.

Coordinating Committee

Members may also pursue becoming a member of the Coordinating Committee (CC). Members of the Coordinating Committee serve a three-year elected position that works with the chairs of the Interest and Working groups on the strategic goals of the NDSA. Details about the purpose, charge, and expectations of the committee are recorded in the Coordinating Committee Information document. The primary responsibilities and expectations of individual CC members include:

Approving and/or participating in Interest Groups and Working Groups as needed or required.
Actively promoting and representing the work of the NDSA in their own professional communities.
Actively engaging in the ongoing work of the CC, with an expected 75% attendance record for monthly CC meetings.
Communicating clearly, respectfully, and in a timely fashion to support active participation by all members of the project team, especially when leading or participating in CC projects.

The NDSA Leadership Group comprises the Coordinating Committee, the Interest Group and Working Group co-chairs, and the Host Organization representatives, which in collaboration provide strategic leadership for the organization. Committee members serve staggered terms of three years.

Host Organization

NDSA derives its administrative and financial support through a Host Organization. The Host Organization:

Provides a membership mechanism, coordination, and support for the NDSA organization.
Provides outreach and communication frameworks to NDSA leadership, which may be used to inform the broader digital preservation community about NDSA activities, events, and products.
Represents the NDSA organization with a distinct and branded web presence.
Supports the work of the NDSA Coordinating Committee and provides one voting member of the leadership in conjunction with elected members of the CC.
Supports and coordinates the execution of an annual NDSA conference.
Commits to a 3-year (renewable) term as NDSA host organization.

Coordinating Committee Members

Michael Barera

Michael Barera (1st term, 2024-2026) has been the Assistant Archivist and Digitization Specialist at the Milwaukee County Historical Society (MCHS) Research Library since June 2022. This position ranges broadly from traditional archival responsibilities such as digitization, processing, and reference to unique and often innovative programs and projects related to Milwaukee history, including creating questions for and calling Milwaukee History Trivia Nights at local breweries and leading historical kayak tours on the Milwaukee River. Michael earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in history from the University of Michigan in 2012 and obtained a Master of Science in Information (MSI) in both Archives and Records Management (ARM) and Preservation of Information (PI) from the University of Michigan School of Information in 2014. Prior to taking his current position at MCHS, he previously served as an Assistant Archivist at the Texas A&M University-Commerce Libraries (from 2015 to 2019) and as the University and Labor Archivist at the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries (from 2019 to 2022). He has been a Certified Archivist since 2016.

Chelsea Denault

Chelsea Denault (1st term, 2024-2026) Chelsea leads the Michigan Digital Preservation Network, a program of the Midwest Collaborative for Library Services with support from the Library of Michigan. As the MDPN’s Coordinator, she works to build a community-centered statewide service focused on leveraging shared resources and expertise to make digital preservation affordable and accessible to all cultural memory institutions. As part of her efforts, Chelsea provides guidance and training on digital preservation in Michigan and leads the MDPN’s policy development and member recruitment. She also serves as the PI for the MDPN’s IMLS-funded grant to explore simplifying digital preservation workflows and provide training for non-technical users at under-resourced institutions in Michigan and beyond. Chelsea has served the NDSA on the DigiPres Conference Planning Committee (2021-2023) and the Long-Term Conference Planning Working Group. She also represents the MDPN in the Private LOCKSS Network (PLN) Community, and contributes to the Cross-PLN Technical Committee and the Shared Messaging Group. Before joining the MDPN, Chelsea was a public historian engaged in community outreach and collections work, and she holds an MA and a PhD in Public History/US History from Loyola University Chicago. Chelsea is guided by the MDPN’s commitment to small, underserved organizations, and plans to represent their needs on the Coordinating Committee.

Stacey Erdman

Stacey Erdman (1st term, 2022-2024; 2023 DigiPres Chair; Membership Working Group Co-chair) is the Digital Preservation Librarian at University of Arizona Library. In this position, she has responsibility for designing and leading the digital preservation and curation program for UA Library. She is the former Digital Preservation Officer at Arizona State University; Digital Archivist at Beloit College; and Digital Collections Curator at Northern Illinois University. She has been a part of the Digital POWRR Project since its inception in 2012, and is serving as Principal Investigator for the recently funded IMLS initiative, the Digital POWRR Peer Assessment Program. Stacey currently serves on the 2021 NDSA Program Committee, the Membership Task Force, and was previously part of the Levels of Preservation Assessment subgroup. She received her MA in Library & Information Studies, with a concentration in Archival Administration from UW-Madison, and holds a Digital Archives Specialist certificate from the SAA.

Louisa Kwasigroch

Louisa Kwasigroch (CLIR representative) is the director of outreach and engagement for the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and Interim Senior Program Officer for the Digital Library Federation (DLF). Her mission at CLIR centers around working with members, funders, affiliates, and the overlapping library/information communities to find places to collaborate and further the field. Louisa’s experience spans organizational design, marketing, business development, nonprofit management, fundraising, and communications. She is a Kodak Portfolio award-winning photographer and part of the Beta Phi Mu International Library & Information Studies Honor Society. Her work in higher education and library and information science is dedicated to breaking down barriers via cross-industry collaboration. Louisa holds a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Science in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Bachelor of Arts in photography from Columbia College Chicago.

Jen Mitcham

Jen Mitcham (1st Term, 2022-2024; Levels of Digital Preservation Co-Chair) is Head of Good Practice and Standards at the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), an international membership organization with charitable status based in the UK. In her role at the DPC, Jenny is responsible for promoting and maintaining the DPC's maturity model for digital preservation the Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM) and leads a digital preservation project with the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. She has recently led the DPC's taskforce on EDRMS preservation which has resulted in the publication of an online resource. She is involved in the organization of events and commissioning publications on digital preservation issues and provides support to DPC Members in a variety of different areas. Jenny was previously a digital archivist at the Archaeology Data Service and the University of York and has been working in the field of digital preservation since 2003. She has been involved in several initiatives with the NDSA over the last few years, including the revision of the NDSA Levels of Preservation and the 2021 Fixity Survey.

Shira Peltzman

Shira Peltzman (1st term, 2023-2025) is the Associate Director for Preservation Digital Strategies at Yale University Library where she provides leadership and direction for digital preservation, media preservation, and preservation imaging. In her role she serves as an advocate for sustainable stewardship and works with stakeholders across campus to champion ambitious preservation initiatives that support enduring access to Yale’s digital collections.

Deon Schutte

Deon Schutte (1st term, 2023-2025; Content Interest Group Co-Chair; 1st term, 2022-2024) worked as a freelance typesetter in the educational publishing industry in South Africa for many years. In 2018 he completed his B.INF (Bachelor of Information Science) through the University of South Africa and his B.INF Honours in 2019. Deon is a MPhil (Master of Philosophy, specialising in Digital Curation) student at the University of Cape Town. He is a Fellow of the South African Chefs Association, the Chair of the Association of Southern African Indexers and Bibliographers and he serves on the Coordinating Committee of the NDSA, he is a national committee member of the ISO/SABS/Technical Committee 0046 (Information and documentation), and further serves on the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) Editorial Policy Committee (EPC). Deon lives in Pietermaritzburg (ZA) and is a freelance consultant for metadata quality control, curation of collections, digital arrangement of archives and quality assurance of projects.

Bethany Scott, 2024 Chair

Bethany Scott (1st term, 2023-2025) is the Head of Preservation & Reformatting at the University of Houston Libraries. In this role she provides strategic leadership for the Libraries’ physical and digital preservation programs, and digitization and reformatting services for the Libraries and its patrons. Bethany also serves as Product Owner of the Libraries' open-source digital access and preservation ecosystem, which incorporates Avalon, Hyrax, Archivematica, and ArchivesSpace. Her areas of expertise include digital preservation, born-digital archives, scanning and imaging, and reuse of archival metadata.

Jessica Venlet

Jessica Venlet (1st Term, 2024-2026) works as the Project Manager for Digital Repository Technology at the University of Michigan Library. In this role, she is responsible for facilitating and coordinating the planning and implementation of digital repository systems that meet the library's digital preservation and access goals.

Hannah Wang

Hannah Wang (1st Term, 2022-2024, 2023 Chair) is Digital Preservation Specialist at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Prior to joining NARA, she held positions at Educopia Institute as the Program Officer for Digital Infrastructure and at the Wisconsin Historical Society as the Electronic Records & Digital Preservation Archivist; she has also taught graduate-level archives classes as an Associate Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison iSchool. She received her MSIS from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Hannah has been involved in several NDSA initiatives, including the 2021 Staffing Survey and the Membership Working Group.

Interest and Working Group Chairs

Rachel Appel

Rachel Appel (Membership Working Group Co-Chair; 1st term, 2022-2024) is the Digital Preservation Librarian at the University of Pennsylvania where she develops, documents, implements and oversees preservation workflows, procedures and policies for the Penn Libraries' digital collections and assets, both digitized and born-digital. Prior to this role, Rachel was the Digital Projects and Services Librarian at Temple University, coordinating digital collections, implementing metadata projects related to cultural heritage and scholarly communication, and managing ongoing services. Rachel holds a Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies from Smith College and a Master of Science in Information Studies with a specialization in Digital Archives and Preservation from the University of Texas at Austin.

Angela Beking

Angela Beking (Levels of Digital Preservation Co-Chair) is the Manager of Information and Data Management Policy at Privy Council Office, Canada. Formerly a Senior Digital Archivist at Library and Archives Canada, Angela's research interests include the alignment of information and data management policies and procedures with those of digital preservation, with an eye to the overall advancement of digital curation.

Brenda Burk

Brenda Burk (Content Interest Group Co-Chair; 1st term, 2020-2022) joined Clemson University Libraries in 2014 as the Head of Special Collections. As part of the Clemson University Libraries, the Special Collections and Archives houses the University Archives, Records Management, Manuscript Collections, and Rare Books. Previously she was the Philanthropic Studies Archivist at IUPUI University Library and Public Records Archivist at the Wisconsin Historical Society. In her current position, she continues to build a premier research collection that supports the university and creates an environment encouraging scholarly inquiry, creative thinking, and lifelong learning. Her research interests include information-seeking behaviors of users, course-integrated instruction, public awareness and perceptions of archives. Brenda graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BA in History and a MA in Library and Information Studies with an emphasis in archival administration.

Ann Hanlon

Ann Hanlon (Standards and Practices Interest Group Co-Chair; 1st term, 2022-2024) is the Head of Digital Collections and Initiatives at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She also co-founded and leads the UWM Libraries Digital Humanities Lab. Ms. Hanlon has over twenty years of experience working with digital collections, including positions at the University of Maryland, Marquette University, and since 2012 at UWM. She has led projects to build digital archival collections of all shapes and sizes, and also works in the areas of digital preservation and digital scholarship. She has published and presented in the fields of digital collections and scholarship, digital preservation, and digital humanities. Ann has an MA in History from the University of Maryland and her MSLIS from the University of Illinois.

Carol Kussmann

Carol Kussmann (Communications and Publications Working Group Chair; 2nd term, 2022-2025) is the Digital Preservation Analyst at the University of Minnesota Libraries. In this role, she works across many departments within the Libraries, as well as outside the Libraries including through the statewide Minnesota Digital Library Program. She addresses current and future requirements for the long-term preservation of electronic records in the areas of archives and special collections, information and data repositories, and journal publishing. As co-chair of the Libraries Electronic Records Management Group her efforts focus on developing and implementing workflows for ingesting, processing, and providing access to incoming electronic materials that are part of the Archives and Special Collections units. As an inaugural Digital Preservation Outreach and Education (DPOE) trainer, she works with Minitex to provide digital preservation training in the region on a regular basis. After completing the initial implementation work for the Council of State Archivists’ (CoSA) Electronic Records Resource Center she remains a member of CoSA’s Tools and Resources Subcommittee. Other current activities include teaching Digital Archives Specialist courses for the Society of American Archivists.

Eric Lopatin

Eric Lopatin (Infrastructure Interest Group Co-Chair; 1st term, 2021-2023) is Product Manager for the California Digital Library's digital preservation initiatives, including the Merritt repository that preserves library special collection content from libraries across all ten University of California campuses, as well as eScholarship publications, ETDs, and datasets submitted to Dryad from organizations worldwide. In this role, he leads the product development of Merritt and its integration with CDL systems, while also directly supporting campus-specific preservation efforts. Through ongoing UC-systemwide initiatives, he helps promote the adoption of digital preservation best practices and associated technologies. Prior to joining CDL, Eric worked at the Public Library of Science where he was product owner for a development team focused on bolstering editorial process efficiency across journal operations. His recent work in Open Access publishing, as well as a string of years spent at Adobe Systems enabling cross-application workflows and shared technology, have all contributed to his interests in the realms of preservation, publishing and software development.

Matthew McEniry

Matthew McEniry (Excellence Awards Working Group Co-Chair; 1st term, 2023-2025) is an Associate Librarian and the Director of the Digital Scholarship Lab at the Texas Tech University Libraries. The lab oversees multiple digitization projects including collections from the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, the Museum of Texas Tech, and other TTU research centers. He has a decade of experience involving digital stewardship including digitization, preservation, metadata description, and data management. In addition to his contributions to librarianship, he publishes on popular culture, graphic novels, and has presented at the Comic Arts Conference, on a supervillain chapter, at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con.

Kari May

Kari May (Excellence Awards Working Group Co-Chair; 1st term, 2023-2025) is the first Digital Archives & Preservation Librarian for the University of Pittsburgh Library System (ULS). She designed and implemented the ULS digital preservation program and continues to guide and develop strategies, workflows, documentation, and policies to safely guide digital assets from receipt to full, secure preservation. Previously, Kari led the development and operation of Kentucky State Government Electronic Records Management Branch and launched the Kentucky State Digital Archives. She has served as a member of the NDSA Excellence Awards Working Group and represented the group as a judge for the Digital Preservation Coalition’s 2022 Digital Preservation Awards.

Dan Noonan

Dan (Communications and Publications Working Group co-chair; 1st term, 2023-2025) is an Associate Professor and the Digital Preservation Librarian for The Ohio State University Libraries University Libraries. Reporting to the Associate Dean for Distinctive Collections and Digital Programs, he plays a key role in developing a trusted digital preservation ethos and infrastructure at University Libraries. This position contributes strategy and expertise, and provides leadership through close collaboration with faculty, staff, and other leaders in the University Libraries. With over 20 years of experience in the archives, records management and library professions, he is a frequent contributor to the local, regional, national and international digital preservation communities. Most recently, Dan served on NDSA’s Coordinating Committee, and previously co-chaired NDSA's Levels of Preservation Revision Work Group. You can learn more about Dan at http://go.osu.edu/noonan.

Robin Ruggaber

Robin Ruggaber, (Infrastructure Interest Group Co-Chair; 1st term, 2022-2024), works as the Director for Strategic Technology Partnerships & Initiatives for the University of Virginia Library. As a founding member of several opensource repository technologies, preservation, open access, and accessibility solutions (Fedora, Blacklight, Samvera, Academic Preservation Trust, Investment in Open Infrastructure, and Education Materials Made Accessible), UVA has a long-standing commitment to protecting availability and open access to intellectual and cultural knowledge. Robin serves in a strategic or technical advisory capacity in these types of technical collaborations, forges new partnerships, and serves as a technology consultant within UVA and across higher education. She is drawn to the complex problems facing the digital stewardship community and sees the work of NDSA as critical to addressing those challenges.

Sibyl Schaefer

Sibyl Schaefer (Climate Watch Working Group Co-Chair) is the Chronopolis Program Manager and Digital Preservation Librarian at the University of California, San Diego, where she helps define long-term digital preservation solutions for the UCSD campus. She previously served as the Head of Digital Programs for the Rockefeller Archive Center and as the Metadata Librarian for the University of Vermont's Center for Digital Initiatives. She has been recognized as an Emerging Leader by the American Library Association and has participated in the Archival Leadership Institute. Schaefer holds an MLIS with a specialization in Archival Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.