Emerging Leader Award: Natalie Baur

Natalie Baur, digital preservation librarian at El Colegio de México, is the 2017 recipient of the Emerging Leader Award from the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The Emerging Leader Award celebrates and encourages early career archivists who have completed archival work of broad merit, demonstrated significant promise of leadership, performed commendable service to the archives profession.

Since graduating with her MLS in 2011, Baur has distinguished herself as a leader in SAA and a trailblazer in the international archives community. The Awards Committee commended Baur’s impressive record of collaboration and achievement in her roles as chair of the SAA Latin American and Caribbean Cultural Heritage Roundtable (LACCHA), a peer reviewer on The American Archivist, a presenter at conferences, and a member of the 2017 SAA Annual Meeting Program Committee.

In addition, Baur has shown phenomenal leadership in Latin American and international archival initiatives. She co-founded the group Itinerant Archivists, served with Librarians Without Borders, and completed a Fulbright fellowship in Mexico. Baur has engaged in extensive outreach and advocacy work with and on behalf of colleagues in Mexico and Ecuador and with indigenous communities in Ecuador. She has conducted talks, workshops, and training extensively both in the United States and throughout Latin America. In 2016, Baur, along with George Apodaca and Margarita Vargas-Betancourt, was awarded the SAA Diversity Award for the LACCHA webinar series “Desmantelando Fronteras/Breaking Down Borders,” and she is co-authoring a forthcoming book chapter about the project.

As one supporter noted: “A knowledgeable and experienced professional, Baur is an exceptional leader in building international awareness and engagement within SAA and the American archives profession.”