Tonia Sutherland Appointed as LIS Assistant Professor

The LIS Program is happy to announce the appointment of Dr. Tonia Sutherland as Assistant Professor, starting Fall 2018. Tonia comes to us from the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama, where she is currently an Assistant Professor.

Tonia’s research and teaching interests include Digital Culture and Communication, Critical Studies of Data, Digital Media, and Information, Community and Cultural Informatics, Archival Theory and Practice, and Technology and the Arts. As Tonia describes it:

My current research examines the latest developments at the intersections of national infrastructures and community informatics. Most recently I have been investigating island infrastructures, advancing global understandings of island cultures by focusing on those infrastructures that support the availability and use of information and communication technologies. This research also engages cultural heritage preservation and management (intangible, material, and digital) as well as the unique information challenges that face island communities worldwide.

Tonia is a member of the Center for Race and Digital Studies, the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), and the Association for Library and Information Science Education, as well as an alumna, longtime member and currently summer institute organizer of the Archival Education & Research Initiative. Her work appears in The Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies; The American Archivist; Preservation, Digital Technology & Culture; The Annual Review of Cultural Heritage Informatics; and Radical History Review.

Tonia earned her PhD and MLIS from the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Among other professional positions, she has served as Records Management Coordinator at Bucknell University, University Archivist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Adult Services Librarian at the Margaret R. Grundy Memorial Library in Bristol, PA. More information can be found on her website: http://toniasutherland.com.

Welcome Tonia!