Webcast Speakers

Jennifer Himmelreich is a senior program officer at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Rooted in and raised on the Navajo Nation in northwest New Mexico, she began working at the local public library to support herself as she completed her undergraduate degree at Fort Lewis College. Jennifer continued working in libraries and museums, developing a commitment to centering cultural memory on Native American, Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiian ways of being and doing.

Since childhood, Maryna Sokolova knew she would dedicate her life to books and reading. So, after graduating from high school, she entered the Kyiv State Institute of Culture and graduated in 1994 with a degree in children’s literature bibliography. Her first job was as a bibliographer at the library of the Mykola Gogol State Institute of Nizhyn. She provided bibliographic references to educators, students, and other staff of the institute, assisted with the selection of literature on versatile topics, as well as kept a file of periodicals.

Halena Kapuni-Reynolds (Kanaka ʻŌiwi/Native Hawaiian) is the Associate Curator of Native Hawaiian History and Culture at the National Museum of the American Indian. He holds a B.A. in anthropology and Hawaiian studies from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo (2013) and an M.A. in anthropology with a focus on Museum and Heritage Studies from the University of Denver (2015).

Marcelo Rodríguez works as the Foreign, Comparative and International Law Librarian as well as Professor of Legal Research at the University of Arizona Law School in Tucson, Arizona. Previously, he was the Research and Outreach Librarian at the U.S. Courts for the Second Circuit and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In the past, he has also worked at Columbia Law Library as well as in different capacities at the Central Library of the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium; the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands; and the Law Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

David Lopez (he/him/él) has over 17 years experience working in public, academic, and school libraries. David is the current President of REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-speaking and has served on council for the American Library Association. He is also past-president of the OC Chapter of REFORMA and served the organization as a public information officer for several years.

Angela Ocaña (she/her) has been the Community Services Manager in Eugene, Oregon, for the past five years. Unfortunately, Eugene faces one of the highest unhoused rates per capita of unhoused individuals. Since beginning her work with the city, she has fiercely advocated for unhoused youth in her community. Before her move to the Pacific Northwest, she was born and raised in Santa Clara, where she spent twenty years with the Santa Clara City Library. She is a graduate of Santa Clara University and San Jose State’s iSchool.

Tina Fontenot is in her final year of the Master of Library and Information Science degree program at the SJSU School of Information. Fontenot is a first-generation college student whose interests include volunteering for the Girl Scouts of Northern California and serving as a reader at the Evergreen Branch of the San Jose Public Library’s children’s department. Some of the LIS organizations that she is involved in include BCALA, CLBC, YALSA, and ALSC. Fontenot is a passionate advocate for information accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion.