It was my privilege to study under two of Europe’s foremost Medieval Latin scholars, Leonard Boyle, Prefect of the Vatican Library, and Louis Bataillon, senior editor of the Leonine Commission (editors of the Latin work of Thomas Aquinas). My dissertation was published by Brepols Publishers, an international academic publisher of works in the humanities. High academic standards and rigorous research are the hallmarks of my education and training -- and of my work as a scholar, researcher and library science professional.

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Fifteen years ago, I began my career as a librarian, taking with me the mindset of a research scholar. I soon gravitated toward becoming a metadata librarian, and later a systems librarian, because the 'inside' of large data discovery systems intrigued me. In particular, how content is processed, enhanced, described, indexed, structured and discovered in an integrated library system.  I discovered that what lurks beneath every search box -- whether it is an individual database or an integrated library system -- is a complicated network of content,  produced by competing commercial vendors, who want their content discovered, and not necessarily the content the searcher wishes discovered! Over the years, I appreciated how my abilities as a researcher expanded as my knowledge of the indexing and metadata structures within databases and knowledge bases grew. Ever since, I have been on a mission to configure and integrate a 'better mouse trap,' for researchers at the university level.

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The marriage of my past academic and research experiences with my growing expertise as a specialist in discovery and access of information (within the Washington Research Library Consortium) has helped me enormously in becoming a stronger  and more efficient university librarian. It’s also changed my perspectives and methods around searching and accessing information.  Research methodologies and search strategies that scholars use are not static (as some may think). Rather, they are dynamic, and must continuously adapt to swiftly changing needs.