Bri Watson (@brimwats) is a disabled, white, queer & nonbinary settler hailing from N’dakina in Aln8ba8dwaw8gan (colonially: New Hampshire), now living in Xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ.

They are a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar and fourth-year PhD. Candidate at the University of British Columbia’s iSchool. Their research focuses on the multiple histories of information and the contemporary practices of equitable cataloging in galleries, libraries, archives, museums, and special collections.

They are first-generation working-class graduate of Keene State College (double B.A.); Drew University (M.A. History of the Book & Sexuality); and Indiana University Bloomington (M.S., Library and Information Science). For 2022-23, they are one of UBC Library’s EDI Scholars-in-Residence and an awardee of UBC’s Public Scholar Initiative.

As a Vanier Scholar at UBC’s iSchool, they focus on information’s histories and the practice of equitable cataloging in cultural heritage institutions. Watson is a cofounder and the coordinator for the Trans Metadata Collective and Queer Metadata Collective. They are the Archivist-Historian of the APA’s Consensual Nonmonogamy Committee and the Haslam Collection on Polyamory at the Kinsey Institute. They serve on the editorial board of Homosaurus, a linked data vocabulary for queer terminology, and direct HistSex.org, an open access resource for the history of sexuality. Watson has authored nearly 20 peer-reviewed publications, including as the editor of the recently-released Ethics in Linked Data (Litwin Books, 2023). Their current project seeks to establish a new field of cultural heritage research by bringing together a diverse group of authors in a collection tentatively titled Towards Special Collections Studies.