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Thank you to all of our excellent candidates for standing in the 2026 Government Records Section election. Please take some time to review the candidate statements so you can make an informed choice.
You will be voting for:
Ballots will be managed by SAA staff, and information about voting will be sent out when the ballot opens!
Eliot Wilczek, Data Management Engineer
Institution: The MITRE Corporation
Candidate Statement:
I am a data management engineer at the MITRE Corporation, engaging with federal agencies on data management, records management, and FOIA work. I am currently serving on the SAA Publications Board and have previously served on the steering committees of the Military Archives, Electronic Records, and Archival History sections of SAA. I am running to serve as Section Chair.
Amal Ahmed, Archives & Records Management Specialist 2
Institution: New York State Archives
Candidate Statement:
Amal Ahmed is an audiovisual archivist and writer. She has recently started a position at the New York State Archives, as an Archives and Records Management Specialist. At NYSA, Amal works with a team of archivists' part of the digital records service's unit. Amal is also currently enrolled at Queens College (CUNY) in the Library Media Specialist program, and president of Queens Colleges Society of American Archivists Student Chapter. She is a graduate of the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Amal’s research explores the migratory realities of displaced film collections, particularly in North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, addressing the need for decolonial praxis as part of the archival workflow. Amal is currently a research assistant and coordinator for student internships for the Faculty Organizing for Community Archives Support (FOCAS) at Queens College. She is studying the role of community archives as radical and critical pedagogical spaces for emerging archives and LIS students to learn cultural competence and counter-archiving.
Anne Foster, Bureau Archivist
Institution: National Park Service
Candidate Bio:
Anne Foster is the Bureau Archivist for the National Park Service, where she develops guidance and training materials for archives throughout the NPS system. She previously served as the Archivist for Yellowstone National Park, the University Archivist for the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Traveling Archivist for the Montana Historical Society, and was a National Historical Publications and Records Commission Fellow in Archival Administration at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. She has published on the topic of More Product, Less Process (MPLP) for photograph collections in the journal Archival Issues and co-authored articles on collection surveys for the Journal of Western Archives and archival mentoring programs in the American Archivist. A Certified Archivist, she holds a B.A. in history from Montana State University, an M.L.S with an archives concentration from the University of Maryland.
Candidate Statement:
Both the Government Records Section and government archives at all levels are experiencing significant change, and I am interested in helping to ensure that these transitions are as collaborative and supported as possible. My current role is focused on developing a community of practice among a diverse and often geographically isolated group of federal archivists. I have also long been a member of State Historical Records Advisory Boards, first in Alaska and now in Montana, so am familiar with the challenges facing local and state government records agencies. As a Member-at-Large, I would use this knowledge and experience to help the section achieve its goals to cultivate community and advocate for the issues that are important to us as government records professionals.
Rebecca Hamburgess,
Institution: Recent Graduate
Candidate Statement:
I am interested in serving on the Government Records Section Steering Committee for the Society of American Archives. I have been a member of SAA since 2023 and stay involved by attending SAA’s annual conference, participating in section meetings and serving as an early- career committee member on SAA’s Technical Subcommittee of Encoded Archival Standards, TS-EAS for the 2025-2026 appointment. As part of my professional goal was to diversify my skill set in information science to include archival management, I enrolled in a graduate certificate program at the University of North Texas-Denton. I completed my program in 2024 and hold an MLIS from the University of Kentucky. Through coursework at UNT, I gained experience in data curation and records management. While completing my final project in records management, I was exposed to municipal records through the Town of Plymouth in Plymouth, Massachusetts. From the archivist, I learned about how the town had transitioned from using traditional methods of managing government records to implementing robust ERMS and content management systems. By digitizing their records and incorporating new software, information became more easily accessible to both town employees and the public at large. The records management coursework coupled with my exposure to its real world application of ERMS in municipal records, led to my interest in serving on the Government Records Steering Committee of SAA. I would like to grow within this specialization of archives and records management and wish to learn from my SAA peers who have already put it into practice.
Kathleen Leonard, Archival Assistant
Institution: Clerk Dutchess County History Department
Candidate Statement:
I’ve been in the archival profession for about 10 years and received a MA in History with a concentration in Public History from Rutgers University – Camden. I’ve worked in private and local government archives through the years. I’m passionate about connecting the public with archival and historical material through reference, digitization, and processing. As a life-long Dutchess County resident, I appreciate all the practical skills I’ve learned by processing thousands of pages of eighteenth and nineteenth-century court records through the Dutchess County Ancient Documents Project. This project remains an important achievement in my career.
Lauren White, Archivist
Institution: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
Candidate Bio:
Lauren White, CA, is an archivist at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and has previously held positions at the University of Michigan, University of Toledo, and Purdue University. She has a BA in English from the University of Southern Mississippi and an MSI from University of Michigan and is an alumna of the 2019 Archives Leadership Institute. Lauren has previously served as Assistant Editor for the Midwest Archives Conference (MAC) Newsletter and as member of the MAC Nominating and Education Committees and of the SAA Accessibility and Disability Section; Reference, Access, and Outreach Section; and Mentoring Committee.
Candidate Statement:
I’m excited to run for the Steering Committee of the Government Records Section of SAA because I feel serving in this role would allow me to bring my unique perspective to Section leadership. I have a mix of experience working in both academic and government archives, though I consider myself relatively “new” to government archives with six years of experience at the National Archives. I would also relish the opportunity to collaborate with fellow government archivists outside of the Presidential Library system.
In addition, I can bring my several years of leadership experience with both the Midwest Archives Conference and SAA to this role.
In a time of AI and the dangers of information hallucination, our roles as government archivists are more vital than ever as we preserve and provide access to authentic government records. I would be honored to work with my fellow government archivists to lead the Section and tackle today’s problems facing government archives.