26 Earn Digital Archivist Specialist Certificate from the Society of American Archivists

CHICAGO—Congratulations to the 26 new Digital Archives Specialists (DAS)! These archivists, who represent a variety of repositories around the country, earned their DAS Certificate from the Society of American Archivists (SAA) after completing the required coursework within twenty-four months and passing a comprehensive examination in May 2025.

The innovative DAS curriculum, developed by experts in the field of digital archives, is structured around seven core competencies: understanding the nature of records in electronic form; defining for a variety of audiences the requirements, roles, and responsibilities related to digital archives; formulating strategies and tactics for appraisal, description, management, organization, and preservation; integrating technology to provide access to digital collections; planning for the integration of new tools for successive generations of technology; curating, storing, and retrieving original masters and access copies of digital archives; and providing dependable organization and service to designated communities across networks. Participants complete ten required courses from four tiers addressing these competencies.

The new Digital Archives Specialists are:

Akio Lis; Alison Skyrme; Allison Rivera; Amanda Lignelli; Christopher Harter; Cliff Landis; Courtney Smith; Daryl Jackson; Ellen LeClere; Erin Smerage; Hanna Pennington; Heather Schumacher; Jason WL CHU; Jessie KONG Yuk-chui; Johnnie Williams; Joseph Azizi; Kaitlin Buerge; Katie Keegan; Laura Seifert; LEE Wai-sing; Lou Hines; Meredith Kite; Rachael Laing; Rebecca Wells; Stephanie Harry; Zaray Buenrostro

A total of 997 people have earned Digital Archives Specialist certificates since the program began in 2011. For more information, visit www2.archivists.org/prof-education/das or contact SAA Education (education@archivists.org).