F. Gerald Ham and Elsie Ham Scholarship Award: Gabi Benedit

Gabi Benedit, who is enrolled in the MSLS program at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill with a specialization in archival science, is the 2025 recipient of the F. Gerald Ham and Elsie Ham Scholarship given by the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The $10,000 scholarship supports the graduate archival education of a student who is studying at a United States university program. Scholarship selection criteria include the applicant’s past performance in their graduate program in archival studies as well as faculty members’ assessments of the student’s prospects for contributing to the archives profession.

Prior to her archival graduate work, Benedit earned a graduate degree in food and culture from New York University and an undergraduate degree in cinema and media studies from Wellesley College. She has coordinated several projects at el Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, including processing the archives of Mujeres Artistas de Puerto Rico, Inc. (MAPR, Inc.), a multi-disciplinary collective of women artists active from 1983–1996. In addition, Benedit is working with Puerto Rican composer Angélica Negrón to establish her archives and assess possible repositories. At her university, Benedit served as a student assistant at the School of Library and Information Science library and worked as a graduate research assistant to Dr. Alexandra Chassanoff. In that role, she worked on the “Diving into Archives!” project which explored how to build partnerships between regional archives and K–12 educators to encourage place-based learning and historical thinking. She is currently working as the first graduate assistant in conservation and preservation at UNC libraries and is also a 2025–2026 Association of Research Libraries Kaleidoscope Scholar. She is active in her SAA Student Chapter and is serving as president for the 2025–2026 academic year.

Benedit’s focus is on creating tangible efforts to help archives reach people. She writes, “Socially engaged archival work has the power to break down barriers to entry, uplift marginalized voices, and ultimately create connections between institutions and the varied communities they serve and represent.” Her commitment and outreach has not gone unnoticed. As one supporter said, “When I think about who deserves the Ham Scholarship, I think about someone who will benefit from the support of SAA in growing their career, but also someone who can teach the field something distinctive. I feel that way about Gabi. I did not know anything about Puerto Rican cultural heritage before meeting her, but now I see why she is so motivated to make an impact on that area, as well as Latin American collections at large. She is a shining light.”