2026 OHS Elections: Meet the Candidates

SAA elections season is here! Thank you to our excellent candidates for standing in the Oral History Section’s 2026 elections. To all OHS members: Please take time to review the candidate biographies and statements below. Get to know the candidates through them so that you can make informed decisions.

This year, OHS members will vote for: One (1) Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, for a three-year term, and two (2) Steering Committee members, each for a two-year term.

Voting runs from June 1 to June 15. Ballots will be managed by SAA staff. 

Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect Candidates

Yolanda Hester  

Biography

Currently, I serve as both an oral historian and public historian for the Arthur Ashe Oral History Project at the Arthur Ashe Legacy at UCLA. In this role, I oversee an extensive oral history initiative focused on the tennis champion, where we have collected and archived over 100 interviews. As project director, I manage all aspects of the project and coordinate various activities and programming, including collection management and curation. Additionally, as significant milestones related to Ashe arise, the material we gather attracts interest from organizations such as Wimbledon, the BBC, Black Spring Global, and the International Tennis Hall of Fame. My other projects include collaborations with the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Local Projects, the Urban Civil Rights Museum, the Center for Oral History Research at UCLA, the Forest History Society, and UCLA’s Bunche Center’s Archiving the Age of Mass Incarceration project. This diverse scope of work has provided me with valuable insights into both oral history and archival practices. 

Statement of Interest

I am excited to nominate myself for the position of Vice-Chair on the Oral History Steering Committee. Over the past year, I have been a member of the committee and look forward to taking on new responsibilities.

I would be honored to serve as Vice-Chair of the Oral History Steering Committee. With over 20 years of experience in oral and public history, my projects have frequently addressed the needs of both oral history and archival preservation. I am particularly excited about this opportunity because it allows me to contribute my knowledge while also learning from others. Recently, my work has focused on demystifying the methods and processes of history production and archiving for community use, as well as exploring creative ways to engage with archival materials. As an independent oral historian, I often approach my projects with creativity and an entrepreneurial mindset. I believe this perspective would be valuable to the committee, and I am eager to learn from a network of like-minded professionals. Having served on the steering committee, I would like to continue supporting its work. Thank you for considering my nomination.

Steering Committee Member Candidates

elizabeth black  

Biography

elizabeth black is an archivist, oral historian, and associate archival producer with nearly a decade of experience across the arts, libraries, and archives. She serves as the Digital Archivist for the Southern Foodways Alliance, where she integrates her Master of Science in Library and Information Science (Archives Management) degree and her oral history coursework. elizabeth complements this work with contract and volunteer oral history projects, centering on the production, interpretation, and presentation of nuanced historical narratives.

Statement of Interest

With a deep commitment to oral history and archival practice, elizabeth is eager to contribute her expertise to the Society of American Archivists’ Oral History Section. Her background in arts programming, administration, oral history, and archives provides a unique vantage point that she believes will be an asset to the community. She is dedicated to fostering inter-organizational collaboration and to engaging with the community to provide support and amplify the field’s collective impact.

H. Gideon McDaniel  

Biography

H. Gideon McDaniel is an archivist and oral historian currently serving as Special Collections Director at Dayton Metro Library in Dayton, OH. Gideon has been doing oral history since 2019, when he started with University of Colorado Boulder’s Japanese/Japanese American Community History Project as an intern, eventually working his way up to project coordinator. Since 2023, he has served as the primary oral historian for “Jews of Color: Histories and Futures,” a Luce Foundation grand-funded initiative. Gideon was formally trained as a historian of the Soviet Union (MA ’22) at CU Boulder and as an oral historian by the Oral History Center at UC Berkeley. Areas of research interest include mass media and cultural history, theology and  religious studies, the American South and West, the Soviet Union, and East Asia.

Statement of Interest

I’m interested in serving in the leadership of the Oral History Section’s Steering Committee because oral history is a small field, and simultaneously, one that thrives in community. I’ve found that it’s often difficult to create community around the practice of oral history within institutions because there are necessarily few positions funded to begin with. As an early-career oral historian, I want to find more ways to surround myself with other people engaged in our field, with the goal of better understanding precedent, and how that context might help us better meet the present moment. Changing technology, namely AI, presents ethical problems for oral historians and I’d love to be a part of creating opportunities, be it programming or networking, that empowers people to continue doing the important work.

Alan Stein  

Biography

Alan Harris Stein is past chair of the Society of American Archivists Oral History Section, and the Labour Archives Section. He is the recipient of the SAA SPOTLIGHT Award in 2007, and was awarded the SAA Archival Workers Emergency Fund Grant in 2021. Having been part of the task force responding to the records crisis during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he was recognized by SAA for his efforts to promote greater public awareness for the good of the profession and of archival collections, as well as the role of archivists and librarians in cultural preservation. He served on the Independent Archivists Steering Committee in 2024-25 and was a member of the Oral History Association Diversity Committee (2022-25).

Stein is the former Head of The New Orleans Public Library Louisiana Division/City Archives Special Collections (2004-06) and a retired California State Corrections Librarian (2016-19) and proud member of the California State Retirees/SEIU 1000. He has advanced workplace equity for persons with disabilities, and is committed to the diversity of our membership, and the goals and objectives of de-colonizing archives. Stein’s publications include. “Oral History, Folklore, & Hurricane Katrina” (2008), which received the Oral History Association’s Best Article Award in 2010.

Statement of Interest

The reason I am interested again in serving on this committee is the proliferation of oral history and digital media, including podcasting, and documentary film productions, which is my specialty. I would welcome the opportunity to work with the OHS chairs and steering committee, focused on the present and future of archival oral history!

Linda Smith

Linda has withdrawn her nomination for 2026-2027.