Librarian in the Sky with Chocolate

I am a librarian, metadata specialist, and advocate for digital equity and archival justice. I hold a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) and a Master of Science in Informatics (MS) from San José State University, with concentrations in digital preservation and the ethics of AI in educational and archival contexts. I also hold a BA in English from Loyola Marymount University, where I first developed a passion for storytelling and amplifying underrepresented voices.

I take a qualitative approach to exploring how information systems can be more inclusive, ethical, and representative of the communities they serve. Through my experience as a digital librarian developing open access collections, as a communications assistant for UC Merced Library's California Agricultural Resources Archive (CARA), and through projects such as Reading Nation Waterfall, expanding access to librarian-curated, culturally relevant books and resources for children in Native American communities, my work reflects my commitment to centering diverse voices in libraries and archives. 

My path to librarianship has its roots in chocolate. In Costa Rica, recovering from a road accident amidst a rainforest full of cacao trees, I became fascinated by the medicinal effects of chocolate made from freshly roasted cacao beans. My research lead me to Bribri, an an Indigenous community in the Talamanca region, to whom cacao is both sacred and central to knowledge transmission. As a matrilineal society, Bribri women pass down land and cultural knowledge, and oversee growing and maintaining their cacao farms, making chocolate from tree to bean and to bar, while preserving traditions that have been integral to Bribri identity for generations (Rodríguez Valencia, 2020). Inspired, I began researching how the Bri Bri and other Indigenous communities document, preserve, and protect their knowledge amid ongoing pressures of globalization, land dispossession, and extractive data practices.

I’m particularly interested in the intersections of language, technology, and cultural memory, and how libraries, archives, and community-based information systems can act as vehicles for social justice. Across my work, I strive to uphold equity in access, participatory ethics in documentation, and the preservation of biocultural narratives for future generations.