Meet the Team
The RoPA Developers
Staff from the University Archives and Special Collections (UASC) in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston led the development of RoPA.
Established in 1981, UASC collects materials that reflect UMass Boston’s urban mission and strong support of community service, as well as the university’s identity as Boston’s only public research university. Collecting areas include social welfare, social action, alternative movements, community organizations, war and social consequences, and local history related to neighboring communities. The mission and collection policy of UASC is further fueled by the department’s focus on preserving community-generated materials through the Mass. Memories Road Show (MMRS) program and our leadership in the area of participatory archiving at the local, regional, and national level.
UASC staff responsible for developing RoPA are:
Sarah Collins
Community Archiving Grant Project Manager, Healey Library, University of Massachusetts Boston
Sarah Collins served as RoPA’s Project Manager, directing all aspects of the grant from conceptual design to content creation. Prior to joining UASC, Sarah was at the New England Aquarium where she worked in interpretive planning, exhibit and program evaluation, and visitor experience. She is an experienced strategic planner and collaborative leader; during her years in Washington, DC, Sarah held project manager positions in education policy nonprofits as well as for the Administrative Office of the US Courts.
Sarah received her undergraduate degree in international relations and her master’s degree in museum studies with a concentration in history from the George Washington University.
Andrew Elder (Co-Principal Investigator)
University Archivist and Curator of Special Collections, Healey Library, University of Massachusetts Boston
Email Andrew.
Andrew Elder has worked at UMass Boston since 2010, having previously served as Digital Archives and Outreach Librarian and as Scholarly Communications and Outreach Coordinator in the Healey Library. He has worked as part of the department’s Mass. Memories Road Show team since 2011. Andrew is also Chair of the Board of Directors and a volunteer archivist at The History Project, a community archives documenting LGBTQ+ history in Boston. His expertise and areas of interest include digital archives and participatory and community archiving.
Andrew received an M.S. in Library and Information Science and Archives Management from Simmons University and a B.A. in English and Women's Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Dr. Carolyn Goldstein (Co-Principal Investigator)
Public History and Community Archives Program Manager, Healey Library, University of Massachusetts Boston
Email Carolyn.
Carolyn Goldstein is the coordinator of the Mass. Memories Road Show program at UMass Boston, where she also teaches public history in the History Department’s graduate program. She has worked as an exhibition curator at Lowell National Historical Park and the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
Carolyn received her undergraduate education at Brown University and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Delaware. Carolyn’s publications include Creating Consumers: Home Economists in 20th Century America (2012) and Do it Yourself: Home Improvement in 20th Century America (1998).
RoPA Core Team
RoPA further drew on the expertise of other leaders in the participatory archiving field throughout the United States to inform best practice advice on all aspects involved. RoPA’s Core Team of experts were:
Kathy Bolduc Amoroso
Manager of Information Technology, Maine Historical Society (MHS)
Kathy Amoroso began at Maine Historical Society in October 2001 as Outreach Coordinator of the Maine Memory Network, one of the country’s first collaborative online museums and archives. Kathy has been with the Society for 20 years and manages all things digital, including MHS’s four websites, all internal information technology and audio/video needs, workstation and networking, image rights and reproduction services, internal digital image needs for brick and mortar exhibitions. She still is very involved in the Maine Memory Network and is in charge of training contributing partners how to digitize and catalog their collections and create online exhibits.
Anne Karle-Zenith
Associate Director, Finance and Administration, Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO)
Anne currently oversees various financial and administrative areas at METRO, a membership organization for libraries and archives based in New York City and Westchester County. Anne's previous position at METRO was Digital Services Manager, during which she also served as the Project Director for Culture in Transit, a Knight Foundation funded project to bring mobile scanning equipment to smaller libraries, archives, museums, and the communities they serve.
Yesenia López
Director, New Jersey Hispanic Research & Info Center (NJHRIC), The Newark Public Library
Yesenia López oversees the functions of the Puerto Rican Community Archives (PRCA). In almost 20 years, the PRCA accessioned over 50 archival collections documenting New Jersey's Puerto Rican communities. She’s hosted, trained, and mentored volunteers, interns, and independent study researchers in the field of community archives, research, and oral histories. She’s also presented on the subjects at various public, grassroots community, scholarly, and organizational events.
Veronica Martzahl
Archivist, Formerly representing the Massachusetts Archives
Veronica Martzahl became part of the Core Project Team while serving as Digital Records Archivist at the Massachusetts Archives, where she was responsible for the implementation of their Archival Collections Management System and Digital Preservation Repository, as well as the arrangement and description of all digital content held by the Archives. She has also served as a member of the Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board (SHRAB), a state-level body that encourages and supports communication and coordination among the historical records communities and the public. Veronica has taught classes and webinars on digital preservation and access for the Society of American Archivists, the Council of State Archivists, New England Archivists, the Massachusetts History Alliance, and UMass Boston.
Danny Pucci
Special Collections Cataloging Manager, Boston Public Library, Content Discovery
Danny Pucci strategizes all things metadata for Boston Public Library's digitization program. In this capacity, she develops and maintains standards and guidelines for the library’s repository system, Digital Commonwealth. She also advises digitization partners across Massachusetts on how to develop their own metadata strategies and sustainable workflows for digital projects.
Joanne Riley
Dean of University Libraries (Interim), University of Massachusetts Boston
After seven years as University Archivist and Curator of Special Collections at UMass Boston, Joanne Riley is currently interim Dean of the Joseph P. Healey Library. Her background is in digital humanities, especially the design of structured data models to store and retrieve cultural heritage information. In 2004, Joanne originated and was the founding director of the Mass. Memories Road Show program, an early community-based participatory archiving initiative now managed by University Archives and Special Collections in the Healey Library at UMass Boston.
Dr. Michele A. L. Villagran
Assistant Professor, San José State University, School of Information
Dr. Michele A. L. Villagran is an accomplished educator, innovative speaker, entrepreneur, consultant, cultural intelligence and diversity & inclusion expert with over 24 years of experience in the public and private sectors. Dr. Villagran’s research focuses on diversity and social justice in library and information science and cultural intelligence phenomena within libraries. She has a vested interest and expertise in helping organizations improve their inclusive excellence and become more culturally competent entities.