I am a special collections librarian with a passion for cataloging and metadata, especially as it relates to increased access to materials. I am thrilled to be working for the Philadelphia Museum of Art as their Taxonomist. The Museum was given a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to “support a first-of-its-kind pilot effort to examine data-integration potential across the museum’s various digital information resources—library and archives, curatorial and registrar files, collections and image databases, conservation records, and time-based acquisitions.”[1] Similar to what I was working on at NBC the Art Information Commons Initiative aims to create a sustainable, institution-wide information culture that will benefit data creation, access, and preservation, and ultimately make our data more accessible to the public. I am very excited to be working on this state of the art project and using my skills to promote access to information, encourage new connections, and new ways of understanding the art objects at the Museum.

In addition, I continue to teach a Knowledge Organization class at the Pratt Institute School of Information in Manhattan. I collaborate with my former mentor and colleague Dr. Cristina Pattuelli in order to make sure that this foundation class covers introductory material useful for all library and museum studies students. It is an honor to work for my alma mater and assist the students in learning about something I am passionate about. Access, access, access.

Prior to this position I worked as the Lead Data Librarian / Taxonomist for NBC News. I was part of the Semantic Data Services Team in the Technology department.  I managed a news related knowledge graph, which worked as the backbone for a universal search application. The purpose was to un-silo information/assets located in numerous CMS platforms in multiple NBC News divisions. Natural Language Processing (NLP) was also employed in order to auto-apply taxonomic terms to textual assets, including stories, transcripts, rundowns, etc…as an additional effort in making those assets surfacable by the search application.

I also love researching and writing about art. I completed the MLIS/Art History dual degree program at Pratt Institute in 2015. My graduate work was focused on digital content, archives, art librarianship. The focus of my master’s thesis was the stunning work of Hilma af Klint and the intersection of the occult and modern abstraction techniques in her work.

The website not only contains my compete C.V., but also links to my SILS graduate work as well as additional information about me and materials for the students of INFO 653.

Just a note: anything in blue is a clickable link, that way you get to see more about the projects I have worked on. Also if you click on something linked to my dropbox you do not need to sign up to view the object, just exit out of the “sign up/in” box and it will go directly to whatever you were looking for. I apologize for this extra step, it is not something I can change.