2025 Design Records Section Election Candidate Statements

Thank you to all our candidates for standing in the 2025 Design Records Section election! Members, please review their candidate statements below.

You will be voting for:

• Junior Co-Chair (Chair-Elect)

• Steering Committee member (multiple openings)

Please note that the election will be managed by SAA Governance staff - keep an eye on your inbox for voting information! 

Junior Co-chair Candidate

Betsy Frederick-Rothwell, Curator & Head Archivist, Environmental Design Archives, University of  California, Berkeley

Bio & Candidate Statement:

 In my current appointment as curator and head archivist at the Environmental Design Archives (EDA) I direct a full archival program including collection development and acquisitions, fundraising and budget management, grant writing and project management, instruction and outreach, research services, and collections and facility management. I began my archival career first as an apprentice archivist (2002-2007) at the EDA, but I also have experience as a preservation specialist for the U.S. General Services Administration, as a lecturer in architectural history, and as a preservation project reviewer for the Texas Historical Commission. My academic training includes a graduate degree in Architecture from UC Berkeley and an MS in Historic Preservation and Ph.D. in Architecture (architectural history/historic preservation) from the University of Texas at Austin. 

I joined the DRS Steering Committee as web liaison in 2023 knowing that I had a lot of listening and catching up to do because I had been away from the professional archival setting for some time. Now that I’m fully settled back in the archival world, I feel ready to contribute to the group in a more substantial way. I am committed to gathering perspectives from the full range of section members and working with the steering committee and other section committees to address the aggregate struggles and aspirations of the membership. I recognize that significant challenges lie ahead, especially in the born-digital realm, and that professional collaboration remains necessary to move from “emerging methods” to best practices.

Steering Committee Member Candidates

Stephanie Tiedeken, Archivist for Access and Preservation for Architecture and Planning, Alexander Architectural Archives, University of Texas Libraries, University of Texas at Austin

Bio & Candidate Statement:

In my current role, as the Archivist for Access and Preservation for Architecture and Planning, I oversee the accessioning, processing, and access of architectural records in all formats housed within the Alexander Architectural Archives. I also supervise and train graduate student employees who undertake various projects including collection processing and metadata creation. My recent work, in collaboration with my colleagues, has focused on data cleaning for our upcoming ArchivesSpace migration, developing new processing workflows and documentation, processing records of active firms, and preservation and access of digital records. Before beginning my position in 2015, I worked as a graduate research assistant at the Alexander Architectural Archives while completing my MSIS at the University of Texas at Austin.

I am interested in serving as a steering committee member on the Design Records Section to contribute to the profession by connecting with others, sharing experiences, and learning from peers. I hope to help develop programming that encourages meaningful engagement and enables valuable connections. I am excited by the opportunity to contribute to this professional community and support initiatives that address the needs of DRS members.

Moira O'Connell-Morganstein, Facilities Archivist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Bio & Candidate Statement:

For the past 10 years I have been the Facilities Archivist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Facilities Archive is independent of the Institute Archive and was created to address of the needs of the Facilities construction group. The Archive holds over 200,000 design records (both physical and digital), focused on the built environment of the MIT campus. I have served as a co-chair of the Design Records Section (2020 – 2022) and as a co-chair of the Digital Design Records Committee since 2023.

I am interested in improving access to and providing long term storage for complicated digital design records. As many in this field know, these records are formed on a number of different design platforms and by a diverse group of creators. At MIT, we receive records from architects and from all the trades associated with the project.

We are also seeing a greater number of digital building models (BIM) that are complicated and seemingly out of date nearly as fast as they are created. How can these be preserved? Should they be? How can they be stored within the framework of an archive?

Nearly all construction design work is now digital - it’s important that we as a profession are prepared to take in and manage these records for the future. I want to know that in 20 or 30 years (and beyond!) these digital records will be as accessible as paper records from the last century are today.