2021 SIS Academic Excellence Award: Hannah Gunderman
Hannah Gunderman came into the MSIS program with a doctoral degree in geography already under her belt – but she wanted to be a librarian and chose to pursue even more education to get there. Before she was even halfway through her program, Gunderman landed a position as a Research Data Management Consultant at Carnegie Mellon University Libraries in Pittsburgh.
What she’s learned in the program since starting the job has enhanced what she does and added to her confidence, she said.
“I think in every class there was something that just helped me really learn how to be a librarian and an information professional, and that’s things that include assessing websites and figuring out how a website can be better organized and how to be a better leader in these LIS environments – a lot of assignments that really increased my confidence in working this way,” she said.
There’s definitely been moments and projects that have stood out to her, such as writing a paper using popular culture to teach geospatial data management that ended up being submitted for publication in a journal.
“That was such a cool way to work on something that would help me better deliver data management support services as a librarian, but also a cool thing for my career,” she said. “It was eye opening to go through the program while I was working as a librarian, and I’d go through things in my assignments and be able to directly apply it to my work environment. “
All of the hands-on projects she did for her classes really prepared her for the workforce and gave her a good grasp on information sciences and library topics. She also credits the time she first had at MSIS working as a post-doctoral researcher with SIS and Chancellor’s Professor Suzie Allard on the DataONE team, as well as with Professor Diane Kelly on research, with giving her experience that helped her gain skills for her current job.
“I came to this program with PhD in geography and wanting to be a librarian but not knowing how, and to be in this environment and the program completely changed that for me,” she said.
Gunderman was thrilled to receive news of this award, and she looks forward to continuing her career in libraries.
“I’m so excited about it – when I started this job I had been in the program for a semester, so the entire time of being in this job I’ve been a part-time SIS student and I’m super excited to have a lot more time to use what I’ve learned in the program and turn that into research and developing more programs for my campus users. I feel that my degree and experience helped jump-start my career,” she said.