Pamella Lach

Pamella R. Lach (she/her/hers) is the Digital Humanities Librarian at San Diego State University, which occupies the traditional lands of the Kumeyaay. She is Director of the Library’s Digital Humanities Center (https://library.sdsu.edu/dh), a values-oriented space designed to blur and disrupt disciplinary boundaries; connect faculty, staff, students and community members; and foster digital experimentation and critique. She is co-director of SDSU’s Digital Humanities Initiative (https://dh.sdsu.edu/), an interdisciplinary and cross-campus hub of innovation. Dr. Lach’s work is grounded in an ethics of care and community building, critical and ethical applications of technology in research and teaching, and process-oriented experimentation.

She is the co-creator with the National Humanities Center of the acclaimed series of podcast institutes that have helped more than 630 doctoral students, faculty, and academic staff move towards a more collaborative, care-centered, networked approach to the humanities. Her areas of interest include digital pedagogy, surveillance, critical librarianship, and anti-racist digital humanities.

She has a PhD in U.S. Cultural History with an emphasis on gender and film history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a MS in Information Science from UNC’s School of Information and Library Science.

Select professional service:
* 2026-2028: Co-President, Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH)
* Fall 2024-present: Editorial Board, In the Library with the Lead Pipe, open access, open peer-reviewed journal
* 2024-2026: Co-Vice President/Co-President Elect, Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH)
* 2022-2025: Executive Council member, Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH)
* 2023-2024: Conference Co-Chair, ACH 2024 Virtual Conference
* 2022-2023: Conference Chair, ACH 2023 Virtual Conference (June 29-July 1)
* 2022-2023: Chair, Digital Scholarship Section (DSS), Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL)
* 2021-2022: Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect, DSS
* 2019-2021: Chair, DSS Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee
* 2019-present: Review Editor, dh+lib Review
* 2018-2020: Co-editor, Scholarly Communications column, College & Research Libraries News (a ReSEC activity)
* 2017-2019: Co-Convener, DSS Digital Scholarship Centers Discussion Group/ACRL Digital Scholarship Centers Interest Group
* 2016-2020: Member, ACRL Research and Scholarly Environment Committee (ReSEC)

• Digital Humanities Librarian and DH Center Director, 2016-Present
  Library, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, US
• Head of the Center for Faculty and Staff Initiatives and Engagement, 2015-2016
  KU Libraries, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, US
• Associate Director/Manager, 2011-2015
  Digital Innovation Lab, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, US

• MSIS, 2010-2012
  School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US
• PhD, 2002-2007
  History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US
• MA, 2000-2002
  History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US
• Bachelor of Arts, 1994-1998
  History, Rutgers University, Douglass College, New Brunswick, NJ, US