Emily Lin, Project Director

Emily has overseen the development of digital collections and digital curation services at UC Merced since 2003. As Head of the Digital Curation and Scholarship unit at UC Merced Library, she partners with UC Merced faculty to digitize and electronically publish materials used for research and teaching, and to ensure the long-term stewardship of campus scholarly output. She has contributed to the creation of plans and policies for shared digital library services at the University of California system-wide level.

Rebecca Gourevitch, Project Archivist

Rebecca Gourevitch holds a BA in Sociology and a MA in Social Documentation, both from UC Santa Cruz, and a MA in Photographic Preservation & Collections Management from the University of Rochester. In 2015, Rebecca was a Human Rights Center Fellow at UC Berkeley, which supported her housing-rights work and documentary Holding Out (2016), a film that chronicles evictions and displacement in San Francisco. In 2019, Rebecca served as a Junior Fellow at the Library of Congress, Preparation Section, Manuscript Division processing the personal papers of humorist, political commentator, and playwright Art Buchwald.

Carol B. Wilson, Regional Archivist

Carol is UC Merced's inaugural Regional Archivist, specializing in the curation and preservation of historical records from the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada Region. Carol has a proven track record in collecting, organizing, and providing accessibility to invaluable historical documents. Before joining UC Merced, Carol's journey in archival work started with ArchivesI nternship through the Pathways Program at the National Archives at San Francisco. They then became the first full-time Archivist at Stanford Law School, where they demonstrated a deep commitment to the preservation of the institution's historical records.

Fabiola Chavez, Archives Specialist

Fabiola is an Archives Specialist at UC Merced Library with over 8 years working in libraries in higher education. She holds a BA in English from UC Merced and an MLIS from San Jose State University. Focusing her graduate work in archives, Fabiola uses that experience to support her unit with archival processing, library exhibits, and advocacy within the archival profession.

Alisak Sanavongsay, Applications Programmer

Alisak provides technical support for digital collections and web applications. He will provide support for applying Natural Language Processing tools to OCR text and for development of visualizations of digitized information. An experienced programmer, while at UC Merced he has co-developed improvements to Calisphere with California Digital Library colleagues.

Erin Mutch, Spatial Analysis Research Center Manager

Erin will advise the project on geocoding, geotagging, and developing a map-based interface to digital materials and information. She provides consultation on grant-funded research projects with a geospatial aspect.

Sophia LaMonica, Communications Assistant

Sophia came to CARA after an internship with Emily Lin supported by a US Agricultural Information Network Research Award, through which she discovered California's bibliography and CARA's trove of state historical agricultural records. A California native and a lifelong learner committed to research, education, and advocacy, Sophia is excited to help share CARA's unique holdings with a broad audience through compelling content across digital platforms. She received her BA in English from Loyola Marymount University and is completing her MLIS at San Jose State University.